A long-awaited trial in Minnesota is scheduled to begin Monday with jury selection for two men accused of helping to smuggle people across the U.S.-Canada border, including four members of an Indian family who froze to death in Manitoba during what they were trying to pass. in blizzard conditions.

The court proceedings come almost three years after the bodies of Jagdish Patel, 39, his wife Vaishali, 37, their 11-year-old daughter Vihangi and their son three-year-old Dharmik was found on January 19. , 2022, in a snow-filled field just 12 meters from the US border.

Autopsies confirmed that all died of hypothermia, US prosecutors said a report filed last month. The family was trying to cross the border in a blinding blizzard on a day when the temperature was -23 C, but the wind chill ranged from -35 to -38.

Harshkumar Patel, who is unrelated to the victims, and Steve Shand were indicted earlier this year by US federal prosecutors in connection with the case.

Shand was arrested on the morning of January 19, 2022, by US Border Patrol agents while he was in a 15-passenger rental van on a snowy highway in Minnesota, just south of the Canadian border. near Emerson, Man.

Patel was arrested in Chicago in February 2024.

The men are charged with multiple counts of people smuggling. They pleaded not guilty.

CBC News will be in Minnesota for the men’s trial next week, which is scheduled to last about five days at the federal courthouse in Fergus Falls, about 50 miles southeast of Fargo, N.D. — the closest federal courthouse to where the incident happened.

Proceedings were previously postponed, including last yearwhen lawyers asked for an extension in Shand’s case, citing its complexity and a desire to avoid multiple trials if more charges were brought.

That came before Patel was charged in the case at the beginning of this yearat which point Shand was also indicted on additional charges.

The family who died near the border were part of a group of 11 Indian nationals who were all attempting the same journey in January 2022, including one who, the trial report said, “was so hypothermic that he slipped and died passed out and had severe frostbite on his nose and fingers.”

Prosecutors say the 11 people were looking for Shand’s van, which had stalled.

Harshkumar Patel, who prosecutors say went by a number of aliases, including “Dirty Harry,” allegedly hired and paid Shand to meet and transport the migrants once they crossed the border into the US.

Patel and Shand knew each other because they frequented certain casino gaming rooms and both lived in or around Deltona, prosecutors say.

Canadians are among the witnesses

The prosecution’s briefing lays out their case against Patel and Shand, including photographs showing how ill-prepared the migrants were for the cold. It also includes selections of text messages and phone logs from the defendants’ phones, which prosecutors say showed their awareness of the dangers of the cold and a forecast blizzard.

Between December 12, 2021 and January 19, 2022 – the day the Patels were found dead – the defendants smuggled dozens of people across the Canada-US border as part of a large, systematic people-smuggling operation that brought Indian nationals in Canada he obtained student visas and then smuggled them into the U.S., the court document alleges.

Shand and Patel — in coordination with co-conspirators in Canada — managed crossings from Manitoba to Minnesota, prosecutors allege. Patel coordinated with traffickers in Canada to establish the locations, dates and numbers of migrants, the document said.

So far, no one in Canada is facing charges. An RCMP spokesperson said the investigation is ongoing and no arrests have been made.

US prosecutors say they plan to call more witnesses during the trial, including law enforcement officers who responded to the scene and those who investigated the smuggling scheme. Various expert witnesses are also expected to provide information on topics such as phone records and weather conditions on the day the Patels died.

Two Canadian medical examiners are also expected to be called to testify about the Patels’ autopsies.

Prosecutors say other possible witnesses include a man who was part of the larger smuggling conspiracy and sent many of the Jan. 19 migrants to Manitoba to cross into Minnesota after failing to get them across the border into Colombia Britain and Washington State.

One or more of the migrants who were part of the same group as the Patels may also be called as witnesses, prosecutors say.