Indian human smuggler shuttled over 500 Indian migrants into the US

Witness says migrants would often pay smugglers about $100,000 to get them from India to the US

By DesiMax Wire

An Indian man convicted of human smuggling says he shuttled more than 500 Indian migrants across the US-Canada border over four years as part of an international smuggling ring that prosecutors said led to the deaths of a family of four.

Testifying Tuesday in a Minnesota court at the trial of two men accused of smuggling of an Indian family from Gujarat that froze to death at the US-Canada border in January 2022, Rajinder Singh, 51, said he made over $400,000 as part of the sprawling scheme, AP reported.

READ: Two charged over Indian family freezing to death at Canada-US border (November 19th, 2024) 

Federal prosecutors said he preyed on Indian nationals’ dreams of a better life in the US, just like the men on trial — Indian national Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 29, and Steve Shand, 50, of Florida.

Prosecutors say they put financial profit over human life when they attempted to smuggle Indian migrants across the border into Minnesota over a five-week period. Patel ran part of the smuggling scheme and recruited Shand as a driver. Both men have pleaded not guilty to four counts related to human smuggling.

Singh said he never met Patel or Shand, but he heard about them through a high-ranking member of the smuggling operation. Singh provided an inside account of how the international smuggling ring allegedly works and who it targets.

Singh said most of the people he smuggled came from Gujarat state. He said the migrants would often pay smugglers about $100,000 to get them from India to the US, where they would work to pay off their debts at low-wage jobs in cities around the country. Singh said the smugglers would run their finances through “hawala,” an informal money transfer system that relies on trust.

Singh entered the US illegally three times after getting deported following convictions on multiple federal charges. He said he is testifying because it is the right thing to do.“They are playing with people’s lives,” Singh said of the smugglers. “People died.”

Patel’s attorneys suggested that Singh is testifying because he doesn’t want to go back to India and face potential retribution from those running the smuggling ring. In exchange for his testimony, Singh’s deportation will be deferred and he will be given a temporary work permit.

After getting people into Canada with student visas, Singh said he usually smuggled people from British Columbia into Washington state, where he would order Uber drivers to pick up the migrants. But in late 2021, the operation’s leaders changed their plans. They began sending people to cross the border into Minnesota instead of Washington state.

Federal prosecutors say the family of four — 39-year-old Jagdish Patel; his wife, Vaishaliben, who was in her mid-30s; their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi; and 3-year-old son, Dharmik — froze to death Jan 19, 2022.

The other witnesses called by the prosecution on Tuesday said conditions were brutal when the victims trudged through vast, snow-filled fields and high winds the night they tried to cross from Canada into the US.

Border patrol agent Christopher Oliver testified that in the weeks prior, he had seen footprints in the snow and suspected people had been trying to cross the border.

One of Shand’s attorneys, Lisa Lopez, asked the jury to differentiate between the two defendants. She said Shand was an unwitting participant in the smuggling ring.“Mr. Shand was used by Mr. Patel. And being used does not equate under the law to being guilty of conspiracy,” Lopez said.

Thomas Leinenweber, Patel’s attorney, argued that Shand’s defense is antagonistic and prejudicial against his client.

Prosecutors say Shand told investigators that Patel paid him about $25,000 for the five trips. They filed court documents showing Harshkumar Patel was in the US illegally after being refused a visa at least five times and that he recruited Shand at a casino near their homes in Deltona, Florida, just north of Orlando.

The morning the Patel family died, Singh said he woke up to a slew of missed calls from one of his associates in the smuggling ring. He called the man, who sounded panicked.

“‘Our work got screwed up. People got caught,’” he recounted his associate telling him. Later on, Singh said, the man told him that a family had died.