A person accused by police in India of serving to smuggle a household of 4 by Canada simply earlier than they froze to demise on the Manitoba border with the USA has been discovered residing freely in a suburb exterior Toronto, an investigation by CBC’s The Fifth Property has discovered.
Indian police allege Fenil Patel was considered one of two males who helped transport Jagdish Patel (no relation) and his household to the border throughout a blinding snowstorm and –35 C temperatures two years in the past.
The Patel household died of publicity on Jan. 19, 2022, whereas making an attempt to cross illegally into Minnesota, close to Emerson, Man. The frozen our bodies of 39-year-old Jagdish Patel, his 37-year-old spouse, Vaishali, their 11-year -old daughter, Vihangi, and three-year-old son, Dharmik, have been discovered simply 12 metres from the U.S. border.
Fenil Patel is going through costs within the Indian state of Gujarat of culpable murder and human smuggling for his alleged function within the demise of the Patel household.
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Watch the complete documentary, “Seek for the Smugglers,” from The Fifth Property on YouTube or CBC-TV Friday at 9 p.m. ET. It’s going to additionally stream on CBC Gem.
The costs have been introduced in January 2023. Indian media have reported that he has lived or fled to quite a few locations, amongst them the U.S., Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver.
However The Fifth Property discovered him residing a quiet life in a bed room group exterior Toronto.
Fenil Patel didn’t reply to a variety of makes an attempt to interview him. When a Fifth Property crew questioned him in entrance of his residence, he turned and walked inside with none response.
From driving his kids to high school to weekend household outings, Fenil Patel’s life appears indistinguishable from that of his suburban neighbours. To guard his household’s privateness, CBC Information just isn’t figuring out the precise space.
Nothing within the each day routine noticed by The Fifth Property hints on the severe costs he is going through abroad.
Fenil Patel is alleged to have pushed a variety of migrants from Toronto to British Columbia after which to Manitoba. There, they met up with the Patel household and have been pushed to a distant space of the border close to Emerson throughout a extreme winter storm on the evening of Jan. 18, 2022.
In an interview with The Fifth Property, Chaitanya Mandlik, deputy commissioner of the Gujarat state police, Ahmedabad crime department, confirmed the person discovered by the CBC investigative program is similar Fenil Patel they’re searching for.
“Fenil Patel is mainly an agent in Canada,” he stated. “He drove them to the border space.”
Mandlik stated that they had requested the RCMP’s assist in finding Fenil Patel and arresting him in Canada so he may very well be returned to India to face the fees.
But it surely’s not clear if an official request has been made.
Final spring, a report emerged saying India had requested that Canada extradite Fenil Patel to face the fees.
On the time, a Canadian Justice Division spokesperson wouldn’t verify {that a} request had been made, writing by way of e mail that “requests are confidential state-to-state communications.”
In response to a followup e mail from The Fifth Property final week, a Justice Division spokesperson wrote: “We can’t verify or deny the existence of a possible request till made public by the courts. We are able to verify that neither of those people presently has an extradition case pending earlier than the courts.”
The RCMP could be answerable for making the arrest, however regardless of repeated queries from The Fifth Property, the RCMP in Manitoba, which is main the investigation into the household’s demise, will not say why an accused human smuggler, who Indian police say was one of many final folks to see the Patel household alive, resides freely in Canada.
The RCMP has not made any public touch upon their ongoing investigation into the Patel deaths since they credited The Fifth Estate a year ago for serving to to generate new leads.
Deepak Ahluwalia, an immigration lawyer in California who grew up in Brampton, Ont., has represented migrants searching for asylum who’ve crossed into the U.S. illegally from the southern and northern borders. He says there’s a variety of explanation why Fenil Patel might not be in custody.
“The RCMP could not have the precise minimal that they should truly go forward and cost this particular person. The Indian authorities should still be amassing info and haven’t got sufficient to really put ahead an extradition request.
Ahluwalia says it could take years for a suspect to be arrested and extradited and factors to the case of Jassi Sidhu, the 25-year-old British Columbia woman who was brutally murdered in Punjab in 2000.
Within the Sidhu case, also covered extensively by The Fifth Estate, it might take greater than a decade for Sidhu’s mom and uncle to be arrested in Canada for allegedly plotting her homicide and another seven years before they were extradited to face costs in India.
The Indian Excessive Fee in Ottawa, which might play a task in any extradition request, didn’t reply to interview requests for this story.
Within the demise of the Patel household, Ahluwalia says the RCMP ought to act shortly.
“If there’s motive to imagine and there’s proof that this particular person was doing all of this in Canada, nicely, to be trustworthy, then you do not want India,” he stated.
“You do not want the federal government of India to do the extradition request. You attempt that individual in Canada. The crime was dedicated in Canada by somebody who was on Canadian soil.”
The RCMP did ship an announcement to The Fifth Property, however wouldn’t remark particularly on Fenil Patel’s case, saying the investigation is “progressing.”
“We admire there’s a lot public curiosity on this investigation and that the general public is in search of solutions. The RCMP are following all related avenues of investigation and proceed to work diligently on this case,” an RCMP spokesperson wrote in an emailed response to a listing of detailed questions submitted by The Fifth Property.
Fenil Patel’s alleged function
The story of how The Fifth Property tracked down Fenil Patel entails late-night calls, dozens of paperwork from India and Canada and hours of surveillance to in the end set up that the person residing close to Toronto was the identical man wished by Indian police.
By its investigation, The Fifth Property pieced collectively extra details about the route the group of migrants took to achieve the border and the function Indian police allege Fenil Patel performed.
Indian police imagine that after arriving at Toronto’s Pearson Airport by way of Dubai on Jan. 12, 2022, the Patel household was shuttled between inns and a personal residence within the Higher Toronto Space earlier than they have been transported to a motel in Manitoba someday between Jan. 16 and 18, 2022. There, they joined different Indian migrants the smugglers have been shifting to the border.
One of many different migrants in Manitoba was Varshil Dhobi, an acquaintance of the Patels from their residence state of Gujarat.
Based on statements to Indian police from Dhobi and his father Pankaj, Jagdish Patel referred to as Dhobi’s father in India to reassure him the Patel household was with Varshil and that they have been crossing the border collectively.
Based on Dhobi’s assertion to Indian police, on the evening of Jan. 18, 2022, Fenil Patel and one other man, identified solely as Bitu Paji, drove the Patel household and 7 different migrants to a distant stretch close to the Manitoba border with Minnesota and North Dakota east of Emerson throughout a bitter storm.
The smugglers allegedly supplied the migrants with cellphones loaded with a GPS app to information them to a rendezvous level simply over the border, the place they have been presupposed to be picked up.
On the morning of Jan. 19, 2022, U.S. Border Patrol brokers arrested Florida resident Steve Shand and two migrants in a rented 15-seater passenger van on a snowy freeway in Minnesota, simply south of the Canadian border close to Emerson.
Varshil Dhobi and 4 different migrants have been caught by the Border Patrol strolling down the identical freeway shortly after. Shand is awaiting trial in federal courtroom in Minnesota for transporting unlawful migrants.
“Mainly, they simply compelled them to go to that website,” Mandlik stated.
“Their plan was to cross from the Vancouver border however I feel there was some difficulty on the Vancouver border. That is why they drove them to Manitoba after which compelled them to stroll by that in that chilly temperature and that ice,” Mandlik advised The Fifth Property, additional explaining police imagine that “to avoid wasting the cash and to avoid wasting time, they advised them to cross from the Manitoba aspect.”
Monitoring an accused human smuggler
Fenil Patel’s title first surfaced when Indian police introduced arrests in January 2023, just some days earlier than the one-year anniversary of the deaths of the Patel members of the family.
Three males, Yogesh Patel, Bhavesh Patel, neither a relation to any others concerned on this case, together with Dashrath Chaudhary, have been arrested and charged in India with culpable murder not amounting to homicide, tried culpable murder, conspiracy and human trafficking.
Indian police allege Fenil Patel and Bitu Paji ran the Canadian arm of the smuggling community, co-ordinating and controlling the ultimate days of the journey by the Patels to the border.
Whereas the announcement of the Indian arrests initially made headlines in Canada, Indian police didn’t publicly launch any pictures of Fenil Patel or figuring out info.
Sources inform The Fifth Property that on the time, Gujarat state investigators gave the RCMP detailed info on Fenil Patel, together with his passport info.
The message from Indian police to the RCMP, in response to a supply acquainted with the conferences: “Fenil is in Canada, do one thing.”
Piecing the clues collectively
Within the spring of 2023, The Fifth Property obtained, by sources, an Indian police report detailing the fees in opposition to Fenil Patel, together with a part of migrant Varshil Dhobi’s witness account.
The police report described the accused human smugglers as males pushed by greed who knew the dangers of sending migrants into harmful climate with out sufficient clothes, however selected to anyway. Dhobi stated he paid smugglers the equal of $100,000 for the journey.
The doc additionally contained addresses in India and cellphone numbers each in India and in North America that have been probably related to Fenil Patel. One quantity had a Toronto-based 647 space code.
When The Fifth Property referred to as that quantity, the one that answered denied any information of the Patel household case.
“Possibly any individual provide the improper info, possibly as a result of I do not know anyone,” stated the one that claimed they did not know the Patel household or about any potential costs.
Just a few months later, The Fifth Property was in a position to acquire extra particulars on Fenil Patel, together with pictures in addition to his full authorized title and date of beginning.
Utilizing open supply property and enterprise information, The Fifth Property was in a position to find a house exterior Toronto related to Fenil Patel.
After days of surveillance, journalists with The Fifth Property have been in a position to join Fenil Patel to the pictures and knowledge gathered.
Smuggler a flight danger
Ahluwalia says what occurred to the Patel household didn’t cease the move of migrants from India.
In March 2023, another Indian family of four drowned while trying to cross from Canada into the USA by way of the St. Lawrence River, close to Akwesasne, Que. The smugglers in that case are additionally nonetheless at giant.
Within the case of the Patel household’s demise, Ahluwalia stated Varshil Dhobi’s witness assertion is sufficient proof for the RCMP to behave.
“I imagine the most important smoking gun on this investigation is the truth that Fenil was positioned on the border, alongside with the Patel household, earlier than they made that trek to the USA.”
He stated he is involved about what could occur if the RCMP wait too lengthy.
“Until there’s an arrest warrant issued for this particular person, there’s nothing that stops him from leaving Canada. He may find yourself wherever after which we’ll actually be at a loss for the investigation.”
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