By Lalit K JhaWashington, Nov 14 (PTI) An Indian-American has pleadedguilty in a massive telephone impersonation fraud and moneylaundering scheme in the US perpetrated by India-based callcentres.
Miteshkumar Patel, 42, resident in Illinois, joined sixother defendants who recently pleaded guilty to conspiracycharges for their roles in liquidating and laundering victimpayments generated through a massive telephone impersonationfraud and money laundering scheme perpetrated by a network ofIndia-based call centres responsible for defrauding Americanresidents of hundreds of millions of dollars, the JusticeDepartment said.
Sunny Joshi of Texas, Jagdish Kumar Chaudhari, ofAlabama; and Rajesh Bhatt, 53, of Texas each pleaded guilty toone count of money laundering conspiracy.
Raman Patel, 82, of Arizona; Praful Patel, 50, ofFlorida; and Jerry Norris, 47, of California, each pleadedguilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud and moneylaundering offenses.
The pleas were entered before US district court JudgeDavid Hittner of the southern District of Texas betweenSeptember 22 and November 13, except for Raman Patel's plea,which was entered before US district Court Judge MichelleBurns in the district of Arizona on November 6.
Six of the men have been in federal custody since theirarrests in October 2016 and will remain detained until theirpending sentencing dates, the Department of Justice said.
According to admissions made in connection with theirpleas, Miteshkumar Patel, Raman Patel, Joshi, JagdishkumarChaudhari, Bhatt, Praful Patel, Norris and their co-conspirators perpetrated a complex scheme in which individualsfrom call centers located in Ahmedabad, impersonated officialsfrom the IRS and US Citizenship and Immigration Services(USCIS), and engaged in other telephone call scams, in a rusedesigned to defraud victims located throughout the US.
Using information obtained from data brokers and othersources, call centre operators targeted US victims who werethreatened with arrest, imprisonment, fines or deportation ifthey did not pay alleged monies owed to the government.
Victims who agreed to pay the scammers were instructedhow to provide payment, including by purchasing generalpurpose reloadable (GPR) cards or wiring money.
Upon payment, the call centres would immediately turn toa network of "runners" based in the US to liquidate andlaunder the fraudulently obtained funds, federal prosecutorssaid.
According to guilty plea, Miteshkumar Patel, beginningaround 2013, managed a crew of a half dozen domestic runnersinvolved in the criminal scheme, liquidating as much asapproximately USD25 million in victim funds for conspiratorsfrom India-based call center and organisational co-defendantHGLOBAL.
Patel communicated about the fraudulent scheme withvarious domestic and India-based co-defendants via email, textmessaging and WhatsApp messaging.
Patel and his runners purchased re loadable GPR cardsthat were registered using the misappropriated personalidentifying information (PII) of unsuspecting victims thatwere later used to receive victims' funds, and used those reloadable cards containing victims' funds to purchase moneyorders and then deposit those money orders into bank accounts,as directed, while keeping a portion of the scam proceeds asprofit.
He also trained the runners he managed on how to conductthe liquidation scheme, provided them with vehicles to conducttheir activities in Illinois and throughout the country, anddirected a co-defendant to open bank accounts and limitedliability companies for use in the conspiracy.
Patel further admitted to using a gas station he owned inRacine, Wisconsin to liquidate victim funds, and possessingand using equipment at his Illinois apartment to makefraudulent identification documents used by co-defendantrunners in his crew to receive wire transfers directly fromscam victims and make bank deposits in furtherance of theconspiracy. PTI LKJAJR.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.