Authorities have arrested “Dirty Harry,” an Indian man they say ran a large migrant smuggling ring that led to four Indian immigrants freezing to death on the U.S.-Canada border.
Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, himself an illegal immigrant who went by several aliases including Dirty Harry, was reportedly nabbed at an airport in Chicago late last week and has a court appearance scheduled for Wednesday on multiple alien smuggling charges.
The deaths of the migrants — a mother, father, an 11-year-old girl and a 3-year-old boy — shocked immigration officials on both sides of the border and highlighted a growing surge of people from India who were using Canada as a transit point to sneak into the U.S.
They got separated from a larger group as they tried to cross into Minnesota during a blizzard with wind chills as low as -34 degrees on Jan. 19, 2022, and they froze to death.
Authorities realized they were missing after nabbing the rest of the group and discovering one man was carrying a backpack with a diaper and children’s clothes and toys, which the family had asked him to carry because they were carrying the child.
Border Patrol agents arrested a man at the scene, Steve Shand, who identified Dirty Harry as the man who hired him. By connecting phone numbers and other information authorities said they were able to identify Mr. Patel as the mastermind.
Michael Leonard, a lawyer for Mr. Patel, said they’re still early in the case.
“It is impossible to legitimately assess the government’s accusations against Mr. Patel in light of the fact that we have yet to be provided with any discovery materials — any of the purported ‘evidence,’” he told The Washington Times.
Manuel Jimenez, a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations, described the smuggling scheme in court documents.
He said the family that died was from Gujarat and there appears to be a running smuggling operation that sneaks people from Gujarat to the U.S. on behalf of “a man from India” who owns several restaurants in Chicago.
“The Gujarat police stated they suspected the restaurant owner in Chicago facilities the smuggling of Indian nationals to work in his restaurants for sub-standard wages and as a way to pay off debt,” Agent Jimenez said.
He said Mr. Shand made at least five trips to smuggle Indian migrants at the northern border in December 2021 and January 2022, taking them all to the Chicago area.
Mr. Patel paid Mr. Shand between $3,500 and $8,000 for each trip.
The migrant who was arrested carrying the family’s backpack the night of the deaths told authorities he paid $87,000 to a smuggling outfit in India to arrange his journey, which included getting into Canada on a fraudulent student visa.
Agent Jimenez said Mr. Patel made repeated attempts to get into the U.S. in the past, usually applying for a student visa, but was denied.
He appears to have sneaked across the border himself, then applied within the U.S. to try to gain legal status. The documents don’t say what his application was based on but they did say he was planning to marry late last year.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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