A Gujarati family of four, including two children, was found frozen to death nearly three years ago while trying to illegally enter the United States from Canada. Their officers had left the family in the middle of a snowstorm when temperatures dropped to about -37 degrees Celsius.
The victims were identified as 39-year-old Jagdish Patel, his wife Vaishaliben (mid-30s), their daughter (11) and son (3).
Now, a money laundering probe by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against these officers has exposed an international human trafficking ring. This network involves as many as 262 colleges in Canada that have issued student visas to undocumented immigrants, facilitating their illegal entry into the United States, according to a report by News18.
Moreover, these individuals were also charged ₹60 lakh to cross into the US, the study has found. The ED started its investigation on the basis of a First Information Report (FIR) registered by the Ahmedabad police against Bhavesh Ashokbhai Patel, the main accused involved in arranging the Patel family’s travel.
Subsequently, a case was registered against some other people under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Patel and others are alleged to have “conceived a well-planned conspiracy to send people (Indians) through Canada through illegal channels to the US, thereby committing the crime of human trafficking.”
An investigation is currently underway to assess the Canadian colleges’ transactions and the amount they collected from these illegal migrants.
The agency had previously discovered that the accused, as part of the racket, “arranged” the admission of people seeking to enter the US illegally into colleges and universities in Canada.
Such people were applied for a Canadian student visa and once they reached that country, instead of joining the university, they “illegally” crossed the US-Canada border.
“In view of this, the honorarium received by Canadian-based universities was refunded to the account of the individual,” the ED alleged.
Indians were “lured” into the racket and attacked in between ₹55 and ₹60 lakh per person, according to the ED.