Texts between accused human smugglers from the day family died near border shown in court
A trial of two men accused of human smuggling is getting a look at messages the prosecution says prove the pair conspired to sneak people across the Canada-United States border.
Steve Shand and Harshkumar Patel have pleaded not guilty to charges of organizing several illegal crossings of Indian nationals from Manitoba to Minnesota in late 2021 and early 2022.
During one of their alleged operations, a family of four froze to death just north of the border in a blizzard.
The jury in Fergus Fall, Minn., was shown text and social media messages sent between two cellphones registered to Shand and a phone number that matches one Patel submitted when he applied for residency in the U.S.
In one exchange in December 2021, a message from Shand’s phone says it was “cold as hell.” It’s followed by, “They going to be alive when they get here?”
On the other phone, a response says a location would be sent.
A criminal analyst with Homeland Security Investigations presented other messages extracted from phone records as well as bank deposits that show money being put into an account that belonged to Shand and his wife.
Shand’s lawyers have argued he was simply a taxi driver who was unaware he was doing anything illegal until the day the family died.
Harshkumar Patel’s lawyers have said he was misidentified as a participant in the human smuggling ring.
On Jan. 19, 2022, with temperatures that felt colder than –30 C with the wind, U.S. border patrol arrested Shand just south of the border. He was driving a van with two passengers from India that got stuck in the snow.
Five other migrants soon emerged from a field, with one suffering from severe hypothermia.
Hours later, RCMP found the bodies of the family — Jagdish Patel, 39; his wife, Vaishaliben Patel, 37; their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi; and their three-year-old son, Dharmik. The boy’s body was cradled in his father’s arms.
Patel is a common Indian surname and the family were not related to Harshkumar Patel.
Messages shown in court Wednesday show Shand exchanged many messages and phone calls overnight and into the morning with the phone that prosecutors say belonged to Harshkumar Patel.
At 3:17 a.m., Shand received a message saying, “You stuck?” The reply: “Still stuck.”
Shand was then instructed to turn his vehicle lights on and off, “so that they can see” and was later told to try to drive further to find people. He was sent an image of a map with the border circled.
“All good?” read a message sent to Shand at 7:33 a.m.
“No. No one yet.”
The trial earlier heard from Rajinder Paul Singh, who testified he worked as a human smuggler for eight years — mostly getting people across the border between British Columbia and Washington state — for a man named Fenil Patel, who is also not related to the family who died.
Singh said Fenil Patel told him he had received a call from the family who later died, and they said it was too cold to continue.
Singh said Fenil Patel told the family to turn around and he would have someone pick them up where they started, but it was a lie because there was no one there.
Indian authorities said last year they were working to extradite Fenil Patel and another Canadian to face charges in that country.
Singh’s testimony for the prosecution was challenged by defence lawyers, who suggested he was co-operating for special treatment.
Singh told court he has three convictions for smuggling and fraud and is facing deportation.
“What you want is to not go back to prison and to stay [in the U.S.],” said Thomas Plunkett, a lawyer for Harshkumar Patel.
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