Florida Man Charged: Death Of 4 Indians On Canada-US Border Granted Release

Toronto, Jan 25: A Florida man charged with human smuggling following the discovery of four Indians, including an infant and a teen, frozen to death on the Canada-US border, has been granted release from jail while waiting for his trial.

Alleged human smuggler Steve Shand, 47, of Florida, was found by police “driving through blowing snow and snow drifts” on the American side of the border. Shand, of Deltona, Florida, appeared by video from a Minnesota jail at a detention hearing late Monday.

Wearing prison orange, eyeglasses and a COVID face mask, Under the terms of his release, Shand must turn in his passport and any travel documents and remain in his home district of Florida unless he is in Minnesota for court. He was ordered to have no contact with witnesses or victims in the case, to undergo a mental health assessment and not to possess a gun or other weapon.

Shand is charged with human smuggling in a United States federal criminal complaint. Shand was arrested after the discovery last week of the bodies of the four Indians, as well as seven other Indians who were trying to illegally cross over to the United States – revealing the extent of the cross-border smuggling plot.

The plot was uncovered after US Border Patrol agents stopped a 15-seat van on January 19. The van had been stuck in the snow and required a push from a snow truck driver, who then called to report the suspicious vehicle, according to court documents. A multi-passenger van so close to the border — but not near formal border crossing points — acted as an alert for border enforcement agents.

Shand was driving the rented van in an area between the border station connecting Manitoba to Minnesota near Tolstoi, Manitoba, and the station near Emerson, linking Manitoba to North Dakota, which are about 35 km apart.

When border agents stopped the van, two undocumented Indian nationals were found inside. But the empty seats and a pile of snacks, juice, bottles of water and cups in the van suggested there was more to the case than just two migrants. Five more Indian nationals were soon found — about 400 metres south of the Canadian border — walking towards where Shand was arrested.

Border agents think they were using an unstaffed gas plant in St. Vincent, Minn., as their meeting spot. The travellers told border officials they had been walking for more than 11 hours and walked across the border in the snow and cold expecting to be picked up by someone on the US side.

The case then grew even grimmer. One of the travellers was carrying a backpack. He told border agents it wasn’t his, he was carrying it for a family of four, also Indian nationals, who had been walking with them but were separated from them during the night. Inside the backpack were children’s clothes, a diaper, toys, and children’s medication. Later that day, border patrol received a report from the Royal Canada Mounted Police in Manitoba: four bodies had been found frozen, just on the Canadian side of the border.

Media reports later identified the four as Jagdish Patel, 35, his wife, Vaishali, 33, their daughter Vihanga, 12, and son Dharmik, 3. The family left Dingucha, a village of 3,000 people in Gujarat. Their identities have not been formally released yet.

“We are distressed at the report of the death of four people,” said Chellappan Gurusubramanian, First Secretary at the High Commission of India in Ottawa, nationalpost.com quoted him as saying.

“A special team, led by a senior consular officer from the Consulate General of India in Toronto, is camping in Manitoba to assist ongoing investigations by Canadian agencies and to render any required consular services for the victims,” he said. Shand worked as an Uber driver and ran a company called Shand’s Taxi when he filed for bankruptcy in Florida in 2018. He is described as a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Jamaica. He was being detained in Grand Forks County Correctional Center.

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has expressed shock at the deaths and directed the Indian ambassadors in the US and Canada to “urgently respond to the situation”. The EAM said in a tweet:

“Shocked by the report that 4 Indian nationals, including an infant have lost their lives at the Canada-US border. Have asked our Ambassadors in the US and Canada to urgently respond to the situation.”

The bodies were found Wednesday in the province of Manitoba, about 40 feet from the US border near the community of Emerson. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said they believed the four died from exposure while trying to cross into the US.