Front Burner - Death at the border and a search for the smugglers

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

A new investigation by the CBC’s Fifth Estate sheds light on who might have been responsible for a devastating and fatal human smuggling case two years ago. On January 19, 2022, police found four people frozen to death, just metres away from the US border in Manitoba. RCMP confirmed all four were Indian citizens, and all from the same family. Today, Fifth Estate co-host Steven D’Souza on his search for answers about the smugglers that sent that family, the Patels, into a blinding snowstorm.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Damon Fairless. Indian police are accusing you of driving the Indian family, the Patel family, to the border. Did you drive them to the border, sir?

Did you leave them out there to die? Did you drive them to the cold and leave them behind, sir? This is the moment CBC's Stephen D'Souza ran to confront a man accused of being involved in a human smuggling operation in front of his house in a neighbourhood just outside Toronto. We want to ask you about what happened to the Patel family. It's been over two years since police found four people frozen to death just meters away from the U.S. border in Manitoba.

RCMP confirmed all four were Indian citizens and that they were all from the same family. They are Jagdish Kumar Patel, a 39-year-old male. Vishal Ibn Patel, a 39-year-old male. Vishal Ibn Patel, a 37-year-old female. Vihunji Patel, an 11-year-old female. And Dharmik Patel, a 3-year-old male. Since then, my colleague Stephen and the Fifth Estate have been searching for answers about the smugglers that sent the Patels into a blinding snowstorm. It's an investigation that's revealed why migrants hoping to settle in the U.S. are first coming to Canada and then making dangerous crossings. And how the promise of a better life for their children may actually put those children at risk.

Today, Stephen D'Souza is here with me, and he's got the latest on the Fifth Estate's investigation. Hey Stephen, it's good to have you here. Thank you for having me. Thanks for coming in. So I remember when this story first broke, it's one of those stories that sat in my gut for a few days. And I kept thinking like, how the hell did anyone lead these four people, his family, the Patels, into this situation where they died. So I want to go back to January 2022, the U.S.-Canadian border. There'd been really severe weather, right? Blizzards, it's minus 35 overnight. It's really desolate there. And the U.S. Border Patrol has just found seven Indian nationals who crossed over a field from Manitoba heading

towards the U.S. border. Five are still on foot, and they say they've been walking for over 10 hours. Yeah, hi, this is Eric from Border Patrol Radio. How are you doing? Pretty good. How are you? Can we get an EMS census of the gas plant on the 410 there? We got an alien that's suffering from hyperthermia. And then the authorities think there might be more people out there. So why did they think that? So of this group of migrants, one of them was carrying a backpack.

And none of these migrants spoke English very well. And so communication was a challenge. But what they saw in the backpack immediately gave them concern because it was filled with children's clothing and diapers. And it was immediately obvious that there were no children in the group. So right away they began a search because they knew there were more people out there. And the search began sometime around nine in

the morning. And it was about four or five hours later that they made the tragic discovery of the Patel family just on the Canadian side of the border. About five feet into Canada, there was three of them. I didn't see the border. Oh my... I walked away, so there's four up here total, I guess. When I came up here and saw it blowing snow... Yeah?

And I glanced along the bank there, it looked like a dirt club. I thought, well, I better walk over and take a look at it, see what it is. Uh-huh. Sure enough, yeah, there's three of them laying there. Oh. So before we get into the investigative work that you and your team have done, I want to talk about the Patels. I want to know, you know, what do we know about them, these four people who tried to make it to the U.S.? So there's Jagdish, the husband, and Vaishali, the mother, and then their 11-year-old daughter, Vahangi, and then three-year-old Dharmik. And they came from the state of Gujarat in India.

And from all accounts, it seemed like they were living a pretty normal, comfortable, middle-class life. Jagdish had worked as a teacher. He'd also worked for his brother's clothing business. And the father owned some land. And so they had a pretty decent life. And so it appeared that things were going well for them, but in that part of India, there's a great pressure, societal pressure to, to leave because essentially they look around their village, they look around the other towns and there's rows and rows, entire streets in some cases of people who have left to go to the United States. And so what they see then is those people posting on social media, uh, about the great

lifestyle. They see money flowing back to the families back home in India. And so all these families see is, you know, wealth and status being gained from leaving to go to the United States. And they think, you know, why, why not me? I want to give my, my children a better opportunity. So maybe I should do the same thing. So back in 2022, your team found Jagdish's parents in a small village called Dengucha in Gujarat.

And it was a really remarkable interview. It was really emotional. Jagdish's mom was crying the whole time. His dad was obviously, you know, broken, I think. Look at this. We have so much. obviously, you know, broken, I think. Look at this. We have so much. Sometimes we can't even live in the house by ourselves. Day and night, we are dying by ourselves. So when you guys talked to them, what did you find out about Jagdish, about his motivation for leaving with his wife and their two kids to come to the U.S. through Canada.

Yeah, they were incredibly emotional. In fact, the parents had not really given a lot of interviews willingly to the media. And our team, it took a while even to just gain their trust to get into the home. Oh man, I can't express it. He was on a different level. My boy was really, he used to take care of us. My life is over. My life is over. They did the interview, our team on the ground in India did the interview in sort of the main sitting room of the family's home. And on the wall was a picture of the Patel family. The picture that, you know, if you've seen the story, read about the story, you've probably seen this photo of the family all dressed up with a green background. And the father talked about how his granddaughter was really good at studies and that Jagdish had told him that they were going to Canada to give the kids more opportunity.

And according to the father, he didn't know that they were going to go to the United States. In their mind, they never knew that Jagdish and Vaishal were going to make this journey. People encourage others to go, so people are going. No one stops them. If someone like me says no, no one will listen. So you mentioned that Jagdish's father didn't know that his son wanted to go to the U.S. I guess the question I had, and I think one you tried to answer, was like so if they were aiming to go to the US, why come in through Canada illegally? Why not seek a legal means of getting into the US? Yeah.

I mean, you know, you talked about how impactful the story was for you when you first heard it. It was the same for me. And my first question was, A, why would you put your kids in danger like this? But also, why not just come to Canada? Why not just stay in Canada? My parents did that in the sixties, you know, there's a huge Qadrati population in Canada. And the answer is simply that, A, it's the cachet of going to the United States, you know, that holds a certain, a certain state in people's minds there as opposed to coming to Canada. And they do have a large network there. And then the legal route simply just isn't an option for them. So we went to an immigration lawyer named Deepak Alwalia. And

he is interesting because he's from Brampton originally, but he now works in California. Just to put into perspective, if that immediate relative were to sponsor their brother or sister in India as of today, they would wait 25 to 30 years to actually get to the United States. 25 to 30 years? Correct. Not the United States. 25 to 30 years? Correct. Not months? No, 25 to 30 years. Wow.

Yeah. So this is part of the problem that it's not as easy or simple to make your way to the United States through legal means. And which is why we have this system where a lot of the smugglers actually thrive because they know the need is there. So that's just simply not realistic for many people. And then the reason they come through Canada is because they can get a visitor visa to Canada. Right. And so that gives them easy access to the country.

And at that point, they haven't really broken any laws. And then smugglers will be there to tell them, this is an easy journey. Just fill out some paperwork. We'll take care of everything else. And before you know it, you'll be across the border in the United States, living your best life, giving your children those best opportunities. And it'll be easy, no risk for you at all. Just, just hand

over some money. Okay. So, so let's talk about that getting across the border. Your first doc for the fifth estate on this came out in October, 2022. And at that point, what do we know about how the Patels got from Gujarat, India to that snowstorm on the border of Canada and the US? So this was about 10 months after the family's death. And there was still a lot police didn't know about the family's path. What we did know is that about a week before they got to the border, they arrived in Canada at Pearson Airport. They were picked up by a private vehicle. And some of these details actually came out as a result of our documentary in October. The RCMP actually credited our documentary with generating some tips.

And so what we learned was that the family had stayed at a hotel in the Mississauga area, just outside of Toronto. And then they were taken to Welland, Ontario, again, just south of Toronto. Near Niagara. Closer to Niagara Falls. And then they were shuttled back and forth. And then somehow they got from the greater Toronto area to Manitoba, to the border. And that's a blank spot. And that is the black hole in the timeline.

It doesn't appear that they took a commercial flight and, you know, the drive would take about 20 hours. And if you can imagine anyone who's driven with kids, you know, trying to do that drive in the middle of January, uh, is not an easy task. And so there was still a big question about how they actually got there. And that kind of brings us up to this new branch of, of investigation that you guys have done. So at that point, you didn't have a lot of answers about who was responsible for putting the Patels in this awful situation. There'd been an arrest, but that was on the US side. There was a US guy who had been accused of picking up migrants in the US when they arrived. But then in January last year, you got this breakthrough from the Indian authorities, right? Can you tell me about that?

Yeah. So in January, 2023, right about, right around the first anniversary of the Patel's death, state police in Gujarat announced that they had arrested three men. And these three men, they say, and they accuse of being part of the human smuggling network that took care of the Indian side of the journey. And so that was a pretty big deal on one hand. But then on the other hand, what was really important for us was that Indian police named two suspects that they believed facilitated the Patel's journey on the Canadian side in North America. And they gave us two names. One was Bithu Paji. The other was Fennel Patel.

Now, the challenge for us in looking at this was that Bithu Paji, Bithu is a nickname. It's not a real name. And so Indian police, as we learned later on, don't know his real name. And so it didn't give us really anywhere to go in terms of investigation. Fennel Patel was at least a starting point. The challenge for us is that Patel is like Smith in Gujarat. So it's like looking for Jack Smith or John Smith. And you do a search, you get the phone book. So I want to ask about how you honed in on one of those guys. But first, I want to go back to what you got from the Indian authorities. So can you lay out what were the exact charges that these two guys were charged with in India?

Yeah. So the charges they would be facing are culpable homicide not amounting to murder. Just like a manslaughter charge. Yeah. So attempted culpable homicide, human trafficking. And these are charges that the prison terms range from anywhere from three years to life in prison. And so a conspiracy, very serious charges. And they're in a section of the Indian Penal Code which says that these are alleged allegations that happened outside of India,

but it empowers the Indian courts to still deal with it. Okay, so you eventually got your hands on some of the police documents behind these accusations. And one of those was a statement written by one of the other seven migrants who was picked up the same night that the Patels died at the border. This is a guy named Varshall and apparently Jagdish knew Varshall's father from their village, right? So what did Varshall write in his statement? Varshall provides a key part of the story in that he places Fennel Patel as part of this

alleged smuggling network. He says that Fennel actually met him back in India with his father, helped arrange the paperwork, and that when Varshall arrived in Toronto a month before the crossing, Fennel Patel was the one, he says, that picked him up from the airport and moved him around through the country and ultimately got him to the border. And he talks about how, and again, the timeline's a bit fuzzy here, but how he meets up with Jagdish Patel and the family and that he realizes they know Jagdish from back home in India to the point where they actually call Varshel's father back in India, Jagdish and Varshel, to say, look, we're together.

We're going to be crossing together. And in fact, it's Varshal who was the one who offers to carry the clothing, the backpack for Jagdish. So he was the one who was carrying that backpack that U.S. Border Patrol found with the, with the toddler's clothes and diapers. So, and then in addition, I understand you got the, the, you got the full police report from the Indian authorities. And there was a crucial piece of information that you guys kind of scoured through stuff and you honed in on something that helped you find our guy, right?

Yeah. So the police report really laid out their allegations against all of these individuals. One's arrested in India and then the two named in Canada, including Fennel Patel. Right. And the key piece of information for us was phone numbers. It listed about three phone numbers. A couple of them were, were, uh, international, but one of them was a 647 number, which is. Toronto area.

The Toronto area. So that was sort of a jackpot for us. Of course, we do some searches. We realize the phone doesn't have an address or anything attached, but of course our next step is to give it a call. This was an amazing moment in an investigation. Tell me about that. So our producer, Scott Anderson, called this number.

And Scott has a great ability to keep people on the phone who don't want to be talking much longer than they really should be on the phone. But he has a great ability to sort of stretch these calls out. And so somebody named Fennel Patel picked up the phone and he claimed not to have any knowledge of the allegations we presented. Are you in the Toronto area then? Yeah, but sorry, I don't want to talk more, but from where you got my number and why you are asking for me, because I don't know anybody right now.

So we didn't really get much information from that. It was only later on that we learned that he actually had given us a very important clue in that he said we were going by some police documents. Right. And we had sort of one version of the name Fenal Patel. Right. And there's a middle name and there's different sort of variations. Sometimes the father's name is included in the middle name. We had one variation of the name. Sorry, you're Fennel, Fennel Cantabai Patel. My name is Fennel Kumar Lall Patel, not Cantabai. And it was afterwards you realized you just gave us the key to unlocking the vault because once we had that name, it gave us business records. It gave us an address. We were, we were able to connect the phone number to an address.

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There's usually three cars. Okay. So it's kind of the, we haven't seen the white SUV at all, have we? Along the way, we had actually also gotten some photos of Fennel Patel. Photos that had never been seen. The gold photos, right? Older photos that had never been seen in India or in Canada.

And so we had a sense of what, what this guy is supposed to look like. And so, yeah, it seems kind of, you know, we, we just, we parked in front of his house and waited. So that appears to be Fennel, right? That's him. That's him. Yeah.

Where is he? He's going to pick up the bin. He's getting the green bin. He's getting the green one. Oh yeah, okay. Got him. Just keep going in case he comes bin. He's getting the green bin. He's getting the green bin. Oh, yeah, okay. Got him. Just keep going in case he comes back. There he is.

There he is. So, and part of that, you guys were taking shots in there. You took photos of him. Then you had your Indian team bring some of these photos to the Gujarati authorities, right? That's right. What did they, how did they react to those? So these are, you know, this is an incredibly serious allegation we're bringing against an individual here. And so we wanted to be as absolutely sure as possible.

And even if you go in my office now, you'll see I have all these little data points that we were using to connect to this individual. And so we wanted to be sure that the person we were watching was the person, the same person Indian police were looking for. And so what we did was with our team in India, we showed them the photos that we had, the older photos, and then we showed them the current photos, these surveillance photos that we had taken. I would just like to show you some photographs of Fennel Patel, which I have. Is this Fennel Patel? Is this Fennel Patel? This is Fennel Patel? Is that him also? Is that him? I think so. This is Fennel Patel? Is that him also? Is that him? Yes, Fennel. I think so. This is Fennel in Canada right now.

Apparently he is somewhere in the Toronto region. Okay. Great. Welcome. The sort of the higher up in the state police, he confirmed it. And then we were very lucky that when we were doing the interview with him, one of the lead investigators on the Patel case was there as well. So he came into the room.

He looked at the photos as well. And he also confirmed that this was F on the Patel case was there as well. So he came into the room, he looked at the photos as well, and he also confirmed that this was Fennel Patel. So that was sort of our, you know, our moment where we're like, okay, you know, we have, we have the goods here. You've got confirmation. You know, we've got confirmation as best as we can do it, that this seems to be the person that Indian police were looking for. So then is kind of the, the, the,

in some ways like the climax of your, your investigation, it's time to confront him, right? So there's this moment where you literally run up to him, you and your crew run up to him, try to get him to talk. Tell me about that. What was that like? What we didn't want was for him to see us right away and then turn right back in the house and go and then lock the door and not get a chance to talk to him. And so we situated in a way where one of the producers with a camera was watching the front door and then I was parked a little on the other side of the house

out of eye line. And so we had walkie-talkies and as soon as he saw him come out the front door, realized he was alone, radioed to me. That's him. Phil, go, go, go. My camera and I got out of our car and sort of bolted down the street. My name is Stephen D'Souza. I'm with CBC News, the Fifth Estate. Indian police are accusing you of driving the Indian family, the Patel family, to the border. Did you drive them to the border,

sir? Did you leave them out there to die? Did you drive them to the cold and leave them behind, sir? And so I met him about halfway down the driveway. He was about to get into his car and he was on the phone. And so I immediately identified myself and started asking him about the allegations. And so immediately, as soon as I mentioned that, he kind of just mouthed the word no, just kind of shook his head and turned around and began walking back into his house. And I just kept peppering him with questions. Can you tell us what happened to the Patel family?

Indian police are accusing you, sir, of driving the family to the border. Did you drive them to the border? Were you involved in the family's journey? But the entire time his back was to us and just, we got nothing. I mean, it seems like, you know, I'm almost certain that someone who's accused of something so serious isn't going to talk to you. But it must have been hard to come away without him talking to you, right?

We subsequently tried calling him. Please leave your message after the tone. Hi, Fennell, it's Stephen D'Souza from CBC News. We still have some questions for you about the Patel family. You didn't want to talk to us outside, but we'd like to give you another chance. We've sent him letters. So he knows what we're doing. He's had an opportunity to get in touch with us to clear the air.

Because if this is just the wrong guy, if we found the wrong person, it would be very easy for him to get in touch with us and say, you've got the wrong guy. Yeah, for sure. And I mean, these are still allegations. Nothing has been proven, but to date, you know, we have not heard or gotten a response from him. So let's touch on those allegations. With everything you've learned, especially the information that came from the Indian officials, can you clarify the allegations? Like what exactly is Fennel Patel accused of? So he's accused of being the main agent, sort of the main human smuggling agent here in Canada that helped transport the family as well as his other migrants to the border. And so essentially he helped coordinate the transportation, the logistics, you know, where they would stay. And so what we have is Fennel Patel being accused of not,

of bringing the migrants to this place in Manitoba, this desolate area in January in farmer's fields, essentially. Where locals don't go out. Where locals wouldn't go out in that kind of weather. And the accusation against Fennel Patel and this other gentleman, Bithupaji, but is that they brought them to this border site, gave them a phone with an app and essentially said, walk over there and there'll be somebody to pick you up. And the allegation is that they, A, didn't prepare them with adequate clothing

and told them, this is your best chance to live your dreams of being in the United States. best chance to live your dreams of being in the United States. And you can just imagine, no parent would want to put their kid at risk like that. But if you're being told that it's just a short walk away and you just look at this phone and the app will tell you how to get there and you've never even probably walked through a snowstorm before, What other choice do you have? So let's go back to Fennel Patel. The Indian government wants him for allegedly being involved in human smuggling. What has the Indian government asked Canadian authorities to do? This is an area where things get really, really fuzzy because back in May of last year, there was a report that came out that said Indian police had requested the extradition of Fennel Patel, even though he wasn't in custody yet. And they quoted the same investigator that we spoke with. The problem is, is that it's not up to the police on that level

to make these kinds of requests. Extradition requests are handled much higher, like Ministry of Foreign Affairs level. And so we immediately back in May of last year, contacted the Department of Justice and said, can you confirm that a request has been made for extradition for these individuals? How does it work if they're not even in custody? And all they would tell us is that extradition requests are confidential state-to-state communications. And so we won't know that a request has even been made until it gets into the court system. And so we, again, we repeated our request just a few weeks ago. And again, we got the same response. And so we just again, we repeated our request just a few weeks ago. And again, we got the same response.

And so we just don't know. So, I mean, there's another way of approaching this too. So you spoke with a U.S. immigration lawyer who's originally from here, from Brampton, Deepak Aluwalia. And he told you, I mean, he had this argument instead of worrying about extradition, that the Canadian police could just go after Fennel Patel. What was his argument? His argument is that this is a crime that happened on Canadian soil. If there is reason to believe, and there is evidence that this individual was doing all of this in Canada, well, to be honest, then you don't need India. You don't need the government of India to do the extradition request. You try that person in Canada.

And he points to the statement from Varshul Dobi, the migrant who survived, who places Fennel Patel at the scene, places him at various points. The fact that he is the only one that can place the Patel family with him at the border before they actually decided to make that trek, I believe is a smoking gun and is enough for the RCMP to actually act and go further in this investigation to actually put out an arrest warrant against him without having to wait for any other more information from India or for them to actually make a formal extradition request. So why haven't they done it? That's the million dollar question. What are they waiting for?

Something is impeding this investigation. And again, we don't know what that exactly is. And I mean, his question was, you know, if this was a Canadian family, would the police have already acted? And I mean, that's been the challenge for us is that, and I think part of the reason why we've pushed for the story for so long is that this is a family that doesn't have a voice to advocate for themselves. Like their parents are living in a small village in India. They don't speak English. You know, they're living with their grief and are trying their best to continue their lives. So, I mean, you've, you've spoken with the RCMP. What have, what have they, what have they said after you shared what you found through your investigation? So after we approached Fennel

Patel, we contacted the RCMP and laid out what we, what we had told them we'd found him. And the response we got was, we work very well with our international partners. Our investigation is ongoing and we can't comment any further. And that's essentially a statement that we got two years, two years ago, like nothing new, nothing even confirming that they're aware of Fennel Patel, that they know where he is or know, you know, anything about him or that they're following up on the charges from India. And when we talk to Indian investigators, they tell us that they met with the RCMP back in January of last year when they first charged these individuals and first named Fennel Patel. They met with RCMP twice. RCMP has liaison officers in India.

they met with RCMP twice. RCMP has liaison officers in India. Those officers went to Gujarat and met with the investigators and the investigators laid out their information, including Fennel Patel's passport information, we understand. And so by all accounts, it seems that the RCMP is aware of him, but for us, they just aren't giving us any information. And so we responded back with a detailed list of questions, requesting an on camera interview to try to find out what's happening. And again, all we got was a statement saying we're aware of the interest in this case, but it's ongoing. The investigation is ongoing and we can't comment. You've been working on this for a few years now. And I think the thing that strikes me is that this has been a case that's had a lot of dead ends or there've been these periods where you're not

getting information. There's, there's blank spots in understanding how they got to the border, the Patels. Um, and there's been one arrest made in the States, no arrest here in Canada. Um, I guess I'm curious what it is that pushes you to keep doing this work. Well, what is it about this story? What is it about the Patels? I think part of it was just when we first, when I first saw the story, I saw my own family in those photos. I have two kids and the photos that that family posted of their kids, the home videos, those are the same things I post of my kids. And I, every morning when I send my kids out to school, I make sure I, I check the weather, I bundle them up and make sure, you know, I, I, I make sure they're as safe, I bundle them up and make sure, you know, I, I,

I make sure they're as safe as possible. And just to think that, you know, those poor children were in that situation, it just, it's heartbreaking. And, and, you know, I, I talked about just the fact that the family doesn't really have anyone to speak for them. So you would, you'd think that this like horrible tragedy that happened at the Patels, that that would be kind of a, you know, a warning, so to speak, for other people who want to cross. That's not the case. If anything, crossings are still happening,

maybe even higher than they were, right? The crossings are higher than they've ever been. People crossing from Canada into the United States, it's happening in record numbers across upstate New York, Vermont. And it's not just people from India. There's, you know, actually Mexicans make up the largest number, people from Central and South America as well. And in large part, it's because people from these countries can get visitor visas to

Canada. So they can come here legally and then use Canada as a jumping off point. But even in our first documentary, we visited the region in India and villagers were telling us, look in this neighborhood, thousands of people have gone. And one city official even said to us, like, if I have the chance, I'll probably go too. And it's just, it hasn't been, it hasn't been a warning at all. In fact, last year, around the end of March, there was an Indian family with their two grown children and then a Romanian family with a small child that they died crossing the St. Lawrence. There was a Mexican woman five months pregnant that died last December.

So these crossings are happening all the time. And unfortunately, the only time we hear about it is when there's tragedy. And so that shouldn't be the time. And unfortunately, the only time we hear about it is when there's tragedy. And so that shouldn't be the case. And meanwhile, there is a network of human smugglers operating on the ground here, making this all happen and making a lot of money too. Stephen, it's really great work you guys have done. Thanks for coming in and sharing it with me. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me.

Search for The Smugglers airs tonight at 9 p.m. on the Fifth Estate on CBC Television, or you can stream it on YouTube this afternoon at 1 p.m. Eastern Time. All right, that's it for today. Front Burner was produced this week by Rafferty Baker, Matt Mews, Dennis Kalnan, and Derek Vanderwyk. Sound design was by Mackenzie Cameron and Will Yar. Music is by Joseph Shabison. Our senior producer this week is Shannon Higgins. Our executive producer this week is Elaine Chao.

And I'm Damon Fairless. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you on Monday. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.