Suspect dubbed ‘Dirty Harry’ arrested two years after family froze to death near US-Canada border
Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 28, is accused of recruiting the driver for a human smuggling operation
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A man has been arrested in connection with a human smuggling operation in which a family of four from India froze to death, two years after the incident occurred.
Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 28 – dubbed “Dirty Harry” by authorities – is accused of recruiting the driver for the operation. He was arrested on Wednesday in Chicago following a warrant that was issued in September.
The family died attempting to enter the US from Canada in 2022. They were later identified as Jagdish and Vaishaliben Patel and their children, 11-year-old Vihangi and three-year-old Dharmik.
It is not clear whether the family was related to Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel.
Mr Patel allegedly hired Steve Shand of Deltona, Florida, to drive migrants from the Canadian border to the Chicago area. Mr Shand was reportedly paid a total of $25,000 to make five such trips in December 2021 and January 2022.
He has pleaded not guilty to human smuggling charges and is due to face trial on 25 March 25.
On Monday, Mr Patel’s attorney, Michael Leonard, said that he had been told very little about the allegations against his client.
“Based upon the fact that, at this point, we have been provided with nothing more than accusations in the form of a Criminal Complaint that recites hearsay statements, we are not in a position to legitimately evaluate the Government’s allegations," Mr Leonard said in a statement to The Associated Press.
Mr Shand was at the wheel of a 15-passenger van stopped by the US Border Patrol in North Dakota, just south of the Canadian border, on 19 January, 2022.
Authorities reportedly spotted five other people in the snow nearby, who were all Indian nationals.
They told officers they’d been walking for more than 11 hours in freezing blizzard conditions, a complaint in Shand’s case said, per AP. On of the men had a backpack containing supplies for a small child in it – prompting an investigation for another group, which had become separated.
Officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police later found three bodies together — a man, a woman and a young child — just 33 feet from the border near Emerson, Manitoba, near to the North Dakota-Minnesota border.
A second child was found a short distance away. All had apparently died from exposure.
One of the migrants told authorities he had paid the equivalent of $87,000 to an organisation in India to set up the move. Federal prosecutors believe Mr Patel organised the smuggling operation.
Authorities believe Mr Patel himself entered the US illegally in 2018 after he had been refused a US visa at least five times, according to a federal complaint from the US Department of Homeland Security, cited by the AP.
Mr Shand, the driver, told investigators that Mr Patel operated a gambling business in Orange City, Florida, and that he knew him because he gambled there as well as operating a taxi service that took people there.
The complaint cited cellphone records indicating hundreds of communications between the pair to work out logistics for illegal trafficking.
One text message from Mr Shand to Mr Patel on 19 January 2022, stated: “Make sure everyone is dressed for blizzard conditions please.”