Two human traffickers were sentenced for their roles in a smuggling operation that resulted in the 2022 deaths of four Indian nationals, including a three-year-old and an 11-year-old, the US Department of Justice said.
Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 29, was sentenced to over 10 years in prison for organising logistics, and co-conspirator Steve Anthony Shand, 50, was sentenced to over six years for picking up migrants in the United States.
A jury convicted the duo for their work in a "large-scale human smuggling operation that brought Indian nationals to Canada on fraudulent student visas and then smuggled them into the United States", justice officials said.
In January 2022, amid severe weather, Patel and Shand attempted to smuggle 11 Indian nationals from Canada into the United States on foot, the DOJ said, adding the recorded wind chill temperature was minus 37.8 degrees Celsius.
A US Border Patrol agent found Shand's van stuck in the Minnesota snow, where Shand claimed there were no other people stranded out in the cold.
‘Left to freeze to death’
But five more people emerged from the fields, including one who was airlifted to a hospital for lifesaving care.
Shand was arrested along with two migrants.
But the family of four was not found until the Royal Canadian Mounted Police found their frozen bodies in an isolated area in Canada.
Jagdish Patel, 39, his wife Vaishali and their two children, aged 11 and 3, were trying to enter the US when they got caught in a blizzard and froze to death in the Manitoba province of Canada on January 19, 2022.
The victims, residents of Dingucha village in Gujarat, had left their ancestral home this month after they incurred severe financial losses while operating a small retail shop and were unable to make ends meet from their farm income.
"The boy was wrapped in a blanket with his father's frozen glove covering his face," the DOJ said.
"Every time I think about this case, I think about this family, including two beautiful little children who the defendants left to freeze to death in a blizzard," said Acting US Attorney Lisa D. Kirkpatrick.
