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    Leader of Smuggling Ring Gets 10 Years After Indian Family Froze to Death

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    The family of four that used the network got disoriented and lost their way in 2022 while trying to reach the United States from Canada on foot in blizzard conditions.More than three years after a young Indian family froze to death trying to cross into the United States from Canada during a blizzard, a federal judge on Wednesday sentenced the convicted architect of the human smuggling network that they used to a decade in prison.Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, a 29-year-old Indian national who lived in Florida, was sentenced to 10 years and one month in prison for his role in the operation that ferried Indians into the United States via Canada. He will be deported after serving time, the Justice Department said.His convicted co-conspirator, Steve Anthony Shand, 50, a U.S. citizen from Florida, was sentenced to six years and six months in prison followed by two years of supervised release.Prosecutors said during the trial that the men were part of a large-scale criminal operation that arranged for dozens of Indians to enter Canada on fake student visas, and then smuggled them into the United States over land.Mr. Patel orchestrated the logistics with other co-conspirators. Mr. Shand was the driver who met the immigrants south of the Canadian border and transported them to Chicago, according to the Justice Department. It said in a news release that the smugglers had charged $100,000 for passage from India to the United States.Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, left, and Steve Anthony Shand were sentenced on Wednesday.Sherburne County Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, via Associated PressFor Jagdish Patel, 39, his wife, Vaishali, 37, and their 11-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son, the journey in January 2022 ended in tragedy. Royal Canadian Mounted Police found their ice-encased bodies in the desolate borderland between Manitoba and Minnesota.The Patels were part of a group of 11 Indians who had set out from the tiny Canadian town of Emerson with instructions on how to cross the border on foot.They expected to meet on the American side a person who would deliver them to their destination, most likely Illinois, where they had family or friends. But the family was separated from the rest of the group and most likely struggled to stay on course in the dark, buffeted by winds that whipped up blinding snow.The wind chill temperature was minus 36 degrees and lower, and wind gusts were as high as 50 miles per hour during their trek, the Justice Department said. An autopsy determined that the family had died from exposure to the cold. The seven other passengers survived.The investigation was conducted by Homeland Security Investigations, a specialized unit of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.“The callous disregard for life that led to the tragic deaths of an entire family will not be forgotten,” Jamie Holt, the special agent in charge in St. Paul, Minn., said in a statement on Wednesday.The sentencing took place in the northwestern Minnesota town of Fergus Falls, where a jury convicted the two men last fall of four counts each related to human smuggling, including causing serious bodily injury and placing lives in jeopardy. More

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      Former Olympic Snowboarder Wanted by F.B.I. on Murder and Drug Charges

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      Ryan Wedding, 43, was indicted with 15 others on charges of trafficking drugs into Canada and the U.S., the authorities said. He is believed to be living in Mexico.A Canadian snowboarder who competed at the 2002 Winter Olympics is wanted by the F.B.I. on charges of conspiring to ship hundreds of kilograms of cocaine into Canada and the United States and on suspicion of orchestrating multiple murders, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Central District of California announced in a statement on Thursday.The snowboarder, Ryan James Wedding, 43, born in Thunder Bay, Ontario, was indicted along with 15 others on charges of running a transnational drug trafficking operation that shipped bulk quantities of cocaine from California to Canada from about January to April 2024, the U.S. attorney’s office said in its statement. Mr. Wedding, a fugitive who was believed to be living in Mexico, was charged with eight felonies including one count of conspiracy to export cocaine and three counts of murder in connection with a drug crime.“An Olympic athlete-turned-drug lord is now charged with leading a transnational organized crime group that engaged in cocaine trafficking and murder, including of innocent civilians,” Martin Estrada, the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said.Last year, Mr. Wedding and another defendant, Andrew Clark, 34, directed the “murders of two members of a family in Ontario, Canada,” in retaliation “for a stolen drug shipment,” the U.S. attorney’s office said. Mr. Clark was arrested earlier this month, the statement said. The duo also “ordered the murder of another victim” over a drug debt in May, according to the statement.Mr. Wedding, who had aliases including El Jefe, Giant and Public Enemy, was the leader of the criminal network, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said. The Canadian police said methamphetamines had also been trafficked by the network. Mr. Wedding “is wanted by the United States and Canada on separate charges,” the Canadian police said.There is no lawyer listed as a representative for Mr. Wedding. In 2010, Mr. Wedding was sentenced by a U.S. judge to four years in prison for conspiracy to distribute cocaine, according to court records.In 2006, Ryan Wedding was named in a search warrant in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, in an investigation concerning large quantities of marijuana, but he was never charged, according to his athlete profile on Olympics.com.The F.B.I. is offering a reward of up to $50,000 for any information leading to Mr. Wedding’s arrest.A majority of the 16 people named in the indictment were captured by the authorities in the United States and Canada as part of an operation led by the F.B.I. called Operation Giant Slalom, the Canadian police said. Slalom is an Olympic event in which competitors are timed as they ski or snowboard down a slope while weaving through a flagged obstacle course.Mr. Wedding placed 24th in the parallel giant slalom snowboarding event in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.Sheelagh McNeill More

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      Bones Found on Prince Edward Island Beach Are Likely From a Shipwreck, but Which One?

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      Human remains found last month in an area of Prince Edward Island that was perilous for ships were most likely buried after a shipwreck in the 1800s, experts say.Human bones were found protruding from the side of an eroding cliff on Prince Edward Island in Canada late last month.But it wasn’t a crime scene. The remains, discovered by a resident who was out for a walk along the province’s western coast, were most likely from a shipwreck that occurred roughly 150 years ago.It is also possible that the bones had been previously found and reburied, said Scott Ferris, a spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Prince Edward Island. Hurricane Fiona, he added, caused erosion and damage to the island in 2022, raising the possibility that more such remains could be found.The authorities came to the conclusion that the bones were most likely from a shipwreck largely by speaking with locals familiar with the island’s history and by reviewing historical accounts, said Cpl. Gavin Moore, another spokesman for the R.C.M.P. in Prince Edward Island.While an investigation is ongoing, Corporal Moore said it was unlikely that the bones were connected to any recent events.But if local experts agree that a shipwreck is the most likely scenario, it raises a question: Which one?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Canadian Is Sentenced to 14 Years for Passing Along State Secrets

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      Cameron Ortis was convicted of passing state secrets to men under police investigation, but his motives remain unknown. He said it was all part of an international mission he could not disclose.A former civilian director of an elite intelligence unit in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was sentenced to 14 years in prison on Wednesday after his conviction last year of giving confidential operational information to four men who were targets of police investigations.The sentence is half of what prosecutors had sought for the intelligence official, Cameron Ortis, whose motive, they acknowledged, remains unknown and who, they agreed, had been highly respected as the director general of the national intelligence coordination unit in Canada’s national police force.Mr. Ortis will get credit for the six and a half years he had spent in jail while awaiting trial and following his conviction in November.The case was the first time that charges under Canada’s 1985 Security of Information Act had been brought to trial. The act’s provisions meant that Mr. Ortis was “permanently bound to secrecy,” therefore his testimony was conducted in secret with only censored transcripts made public. Other evidence has been kept secret.Mr. Ortis repeatedly declared his innocence and testified that his actions had been part of a top-secret, international mission he had embarked on during a leave of absence in 2015 — to study French — and that the mission had been brought to him by someone at “a foreign agency.”He testified that binding promises he had made in taking on the operation prevented him from naming that person, identifying where he or she worked or telling the court what threat to Canada had prompted him to take on the task.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More