Nearly three years after an Indian family of four froze to death in Canada during an ill-fated attempt to enter the US, two men are facing trial, accused of trying to help smuggle them across the border.
It was a backpack with child’s clothing and toys that first worried US Border Patrol agents.
That winter morning in January 2022, after a fierce blizzard, authorities had arrested a man driving a van near the US-Canada border, suspecting him of smuggling migrants.
Along with the driver, border guards picked up seven Indian nationals. One was carrying the backpack, but there were no children.
A family with two children had been with the other migrants as they made their way across the border at night, border agents were told, but they had become separated.
A search was launched and Canadian police found the bodies of Vaishaliben Patel, her husband Jagdish and their two young children, 11-year-old Vihangi and three-year-old Dharmik, in a Manitoba field just 12m (39ft) from the US border.
It is believed that the family - who had travelled on visitor visas from their home village in western India to Toronto, Canada - were trying to cross into the US when they were caught in the blinding blizzard with a bone-chilling cold that hovered below -35C (-31F).
The family that froze to death a world away from home
Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel (who is not related to the deceased family) and Steve Anthony Shand are accused of helping them make the fatal journey.
They each face charges of human trafficking, criminal conspiracy and culpable homicide not amounting to murder in the US state of Minnesota, with their trial set to begin on Monday with jury selection. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Court documents filed in the case reveal an alleged complex, global web behind human smuggling operations that are designed to get foreign nationals into North America.
In this alleged case, it began with thousands of dollars in payments to illegal immigration agents in India, who then connected those eager to move abroad with a network of smugglers based in the US and Canada.
Since the Patel tragedy, at least two more families have died trying to unlawfully cross the US-Canada border.
Immigration experts fear clandestine smuggling networks will be used more by undocumented migrants in the coming years, in light of Donald Trump's incoming administration and its plan for mass deportations.
Mr Shand was the van driver, arrested on the same day the Patels’ bodies were discovered.
Police say they found him with a 15-passenger van near the border of Minnesota in the US and Winnipeg in Canada, with two Indian nationals who were unlawfully in the US.
Five others - all from Gujarat, the Patels' home state in India - were found walking towards where Mr Shand was apprehended.
One of them, identified in documents only as VD, told officers that the group had walked across the border at night. It took them 11 hours and they had expected to be picked up by someone once in the US.
VD told authorities that he paid “a significant sum” of US$87,000 (£68,519) to an organisation in India that arranged for him to enter Canada - under the guise of a fraudulently obtained student visa - and later help him illegally enter the US.
