Jagdish Patel, 39; his wife Vaishaliben Patel, 37; their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi; and their three-year-old son, Dharmik in a handout photo.Amritbhai Vakil/The Canadian Press
A Minnesota court requested the arrest of a Canadian resident this month so he can stand trial in the U.S. after he allegedly helped with the 2022 cross-border smuggling of an Indian family of four who froze to death in Manitoba.
U.S. authorities were concerned that Fenil Patel, 37, who also goes by the name Fenilkumar Kantilal Patel, would flee Canada – possibly to India – according to new court documents filed in Ontario and Minnesota, verified by The Globe and Mail.
Those fears led police to arrest Mr. Patel in the Greater Toronto Area on Sept. 5. “While the United States has an extradition treaty with India, the U.S. authorities understand that India is not a co-operative partner in extradition,” wrote Detective Constable Christopher Wilson of the Toronto Police Fugitive Squad in an affidavit.
Many of the U.S. and Canadian court documents for Mr. Patel remain sealed from the public. The parts of them that are able to be viewed on a limited basis do not explicitly state any specific charges for him in either country.
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However, under a section titled “U.S. Charging or Commitment Document,” they show that Mr. Patel is facing an indictment by the District of Minnesota, noting that his alleged offences are punishable by at least one year. The documents also list evidence against him, which has not yet been tested in court.
It remains unclear when or if Mr. Patel will be handed over to the U.S. by Canadian authorities.
The U.S. Department of Justice, the RCMP and Indian officials declined to comment on the case on Wednesday. Canada’s Department of Justice, which earlier this week confirmed Mr. Patel’s arrest and potential extradition, also declined to provide further details, describing the matter as part of “confidential state-to-state communications.”
In January, 2022, the bodies of the Patel family from India – Jagdish, 39, Vaishali, 37, Vihangi, 11, and Dharmik, 3 – were found dead from severe hypothermia, just a short distance away from Manitoba’s border with Minnesota.
U.S. authorities soon charged two men, Steve Shand of Florida and Harshkumar Patel (not related to the Patel family), an Indian citizen arrested in Chicago.
Late last year in Minnesota, a jury convicted them on four counts related to their roles in a large-scale human-smuggling operation spanning across India, Canada and the U.S. The men’s requests for new trials were rejected, with Mr. Shand sentenced to 6½ years and Harshkumar Patel handed 10 years and one month.
The alleged involvement of Fenil Patel – also unrelated to the Patel family – came up several times during the trial. But the Brampton, Ont.-based permanent resident of Canada was never formally charged nor arrested at the time.
Composite of two photos of Fenil Patel, 37, who also goes by the name Fenilkumar Kantilal Patel.Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney-General.
According to the untested evidence in the new court documents for Mr. Patel, he is accused as a key facilitator in the last-mile effort of the smuggling operation.
On the night of Jan. 18, 2022, he allegedly transported 11 Indian migrants from Winnipeg toward the U.S.-Canadian border in a van. When the van got stuck in a remote and snow-covered area, he told the passengers to get out and walk in the dark across a field, assuring them that they would soon be picked up.
As weather conditions deteriorated and temperatures plummeted well below zero, the migrants got separated. Authorities in the U.S. found seven of them the next day, alive in Minnesota. The Patel family were left for dead – with the father, Jagdish, huddled with his kids, and his wife, Vaishali, a few hundred metres away.
The evidence claims that Fenil Patel helped the family of four obtain Canadian student visas, organizing their flights from India. Authorities in the U.S. believe he had originally intended to facilitate their smuggling through British Columbia’s border with the state of Washington. The migrants had all flown to Vancouver.
Eventually, however, Mr. Patel allegedly flew the migrants back to Toronto for his new plan. Testimony and records from U.S. Homeland Security during last year’s trial revealed that, after the migrants got back to Ontario, Mr. Patel rented a vehicle in Toronto and drove it to Winnipeg.
The new evidence points to a trove of messages and calls between Mr. Patel and other men who were allegedly part of his smuggling group. In those exchanges, U.S. authorities say that he “panicked” and wanted to change his phone number when his plan failed and caused the Patel family to die.
U.S. authorities believe that the convictions and sentencing of Mr. Patel’s co-conspirators in the smuggling operations have increased his “risk of flight from Canada.” In court documents, they also state that a recent application from CBC News seeking information from RCMP’s file on Mr. Patel “could potentially lead to the release of sensitive information regarding the investigation into Patel and possibly to Patel fleeing Canada.”
During his first extradition hearings after his arrest, Mr. Patel told court that he understands and speaks some English but requested a Gujarati interpreter and asked for his own lawyer. He remains remanded in custody until his next hearing, which is scheduled for Friday.
His wife, Parul Fenilkumar Patel, with whom he co-owns a house in Brampton, did not respond to The Globe’s requests for comment.
With research from Stephanie Chambers in Toronto