New Delhi, May 29 -- A "ringleader" of an international human smuggling plot was reportedly sentenced to 10 years in prison in Minnesota on Wednesday.

The verdict came more than three years after a family of four from India froze to death while trying to enter the US along a remote stretch of the Canadian border in a blizzard.

The judge handed down the sentences at the federal courthouse in the northwestern Minnesota city of Fergus Falls, where the two accused men were tried and convicted on four counts apiece last November.

The two accused men were identified as Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel and Steve Anthony Shand.

In court in the US state of Minnesota, Patel was sentenced to just over 10 years in prison. Shand was sentenced to six-and-...