{"id":233319,"date":"2025-09-17T07:51:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T07:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/233319\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T07:51:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T07:51:13","slug":"canadian-resident-accused-of-smuggling-indian-family-who-froze-to-death-near-u-s-border-arrested","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/233319\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian resident accused of smuggling Indian family who froze to death near U.S. border arrested"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

The bodies of the Patel family \u2013 Jagdish, 39, Vaishali, 37, Vihangi, 11, and Dharmik, 3 \u2013 were found with signs of severe hypothermia just a short distance away from the Manitoba-Minnesota border in January, 2022.Amritbhai Vakil\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

A Canadian resident has been arrested after his alleged involvement in the high-profile smuggling of a young Indian family of four<\/a> who froze to death along the U.S. border in Manitoba in early 2022. <\/p>\n

Fenil Patel, 37, who also goes by the name Fenilkumar Kantilal Patel, was apprehended on Sept. 5, based on an extradition request from the U.S., said Kwame Bonsu, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice Canada. The official declined to provide further details, including about any pending charges, describing the matter on Tuesday as part of \u201cconfidential state-to-state communications.\u201d<\/p>\n

Court documents in Ontario verified by The Globe and Mail show a case filed under the title, \u201cThe Attorney General of Canada on behalf of U.S.A. v. Patel\u201d \u2013 with Mr. Patel\u2019s next hearing scheduled for this Friday in Brampton, Ont. His charges were not mentioned, and it is not clear when or if he will be handed over to the U.S.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Justice will not be commenting on the case, said Nicole Navas Oxman, senior adviser for international law enforcement.<\/p>\n

Convicted human smugglers get prison after family froze to death at Canada-U.S. border<\/a><\/p>\n

Andrew DiRienzo, the team lead for the RCMP\u2019s national communications branch, referred questions about Mr. Patel\u2019s arrest to the RCMP\u2019s Federal Policing Northwest Region. That division did not respond to repeated requests for comment.<\/p>\n

In January of 2022, during treacherous winter conditions, the bodies of the Patel family \u2013 Jagdish, 39, Vaishali, 37, Vihangi, 11, and Dharmik, 3 \u2013 were found with signs of severe hypothermia just a short distance away from the Manitoba-Minnesota<\/a> border. <\/p>\n

Authorities later confirmed that the family, unrelated to Fenil Patel, was trying to cross illegally by foot into the U.S., when they were left for dead in the middle of a blizzard. <\/p>\n

Steve Shand <\/b>of Florida and Harshkumar Patel, an Indian citizen who was arrested in Chicago (and who also does not have any familial relation to the Patel family), were both charged with multiple crimes for their involvement in the case. <\/p>\n

Their trial ended in November last year, with a Minnesota jury<\/a> convicting the two men on four counts related to bringing unauthorized people into the U.S. and profiting from the transport. <\/p>\n

Earlier this year, a U.S. federal judge rejected the men\u2019s requests for retrials, with Mr. Shand sentenced to 6\u00bd years and Harshkumar Patel handed 10 years and one month. After prison, Mr. Shand is expected to receive two years of supervised release, while Harshkumar Patel will be removed from the country. <\/p>\n

Evidence in court showed that the men were part of a large-scale human-smuggling operation. They provided Indian nationals with fraudulent student visas for Canada, then organized logistics to transport them to the U.S. through Manitoba<\/a>. They disregarded the risks of cold weather at the border and were paid a rate of around US$100,000 a person, the judge concluded.<\/p>\n

Fenil Patel\u2019s alleged involvement <\/b>as a key facilitator in the conspiracy was mentioned several times during the trial, though he was never formally charged at the time nor arrested in the case.<\/p>\n

Testimony from a man, Rajinder Singh, who was part of the organized smuggling group but not directly connected to the 2022 incident, heard that Fenil Patel was called by the family on the night of their deaths. They asked him for his help as they struggled to walk in the blizzard, and Mr. Patel told the family he\u2019d pick them up, but \u201che lied to them,\u201d Mr. Singh told the court.<\/p>\n

Testimony from Manuel Jimenez, a special agent with U.S. Homeland Security, provided the court with vehicle records for Mr. Patel. They showed that he rented a vehicle in Toronto on Jan. 17, 2022, driving it to Winnipeg, and dropping it off there the following day, which is when the family was taken to the border.<\/p>\n

In 2023, police in India<\/a> accused Mr. Patel of homicide and human smuggling in the Patel family\u2019s case. In May of that year, a high-ranking police official, Chaitanya Mandlik, said Indian authorities had begun the process to extradite Mr. Patel and another man, Bitta Singh, both of whom he believed to have been living in Vancouver at the time.<\/p>\n

Canadian property records, however, suggest that Mr. Patel has been living in the Greater Toronto Area, where he co-owns a house in Brampton with his spouse, Parul Fenilkumar Patel, 35. <\/p>\n

Their ages and status as Canadian residents are shown on the records and documents verified by The Globe, though they do not clarify whether the pair are citizens or permanent residents. Calls to the couple\u2019s listed phone numbers were not answered Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Indian officials declined to comment on the matter.<\/p>\n

The Hindustan Times reported on Tuesday, citing a confidential source, that Indian police in the coastal state of Gujarat are aware of Mr. Patel\u2019s arrest and working with international counterparts. The Delhi-based daily newspaper stated that authorities there have also been conducting their own investigations.<\/p>\n

With research from Stephanie Chambers in Toronto and a report from The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: The bodies of the Patel family \u2013 Jagdish, 39, Vaishali, 37, Vihangi, 11,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":233320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2148,2138,671,104,2132,692,2147,2131,2143,2144,2140,2133,2130,79,407,746,2142,2137,2159,2134,2135,454,2139,1165,728,2149,108,2154,2155,50,2157,2152,2156,2150,2153,2136,85,2146,80,2145,2151,1458,158,1164,2141,1154,107,2158],"class_list":{"0":"post-233319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breaking-news-video","13":"tag-british-columbia","14":"tag-canada","15":"tag-canada-news","16":"tag-canada-sports","17":"tag-canada-sports-news","18":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","19":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","20":"tag-canadian-news","21":"tag-economy","22":"tag-education","23":"tag-environment","24":"tag-federal-government","25":"tag-foreign-news","26":"tag-globe-and-mail","27":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","28":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","29":"tag-government","30":"tag-life-news","31":"tag-lifestyle","32":"tag-local-news","33":"tag-manitoba","34":"tag-national-news","35":"tag-new-brunswick","36":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","37":"tag-news","38":"tag-northwest-territories","39":"tag-nova-scotia","40":"tag-nunavut","41":"tag-ontario","42":"tag-pei","43":"tag-photos","44":"tag-political-news","45":"tag-political-opinion","46":"tag-politics","47":"tag-politics-news","48":"tag-quebec","49":"tag-sports-news","50":"tag-technology","51":"tag-travel","52":"tag-trudeau","53":"tag-us-news","54":"tag-world-news","55":"tag-yukon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}