Florida man pleads not guilty of killing 4 Indian migrants in 2022

Houston, May 28

A Florida man has pleaded not guilty to human smuggling charges in a case linked to the discovery last year of a family of four migrants from India found frozen to death just steps from the Canada-US border, according to media reports.

Steve Shand, 48, waived the reading of the indictment before entering the plea via videoconference as part of a brief but long-awaited arraignment in Duluth, Minnesota.

Shand is accused of illegally bringing migrants from India into the US during a frigid January night in 2022, a newspaper reported.

“Not guilty,” Shand said when asked by Minnesota magistrate Judge Leo Brisbois how he was pleading to the charges — one count each of bringing people into the US illegally and of transporting them inside the country.

He was arrested in January 2022 in a remote area of northern Minnesota, where US border agents encountered him with two Indian nationals in a rented passenger van.

Just over the border in Manitoba, 12 metres from the Canada-US border, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police discovered the bodies of four persons authorities believe froze to death while trying to slip into the US undetected, a news agency reported. Relatives identified the victims as Jagdish Patel (39), his wife Vaishaliben (37), daughter Vihangi (11) and three-year-old son Dharmik.