Washington: Nishitkumar Patel, 31, an Indian national, who was allegedly involved in an India-based call centre scam was sentenced to eight years and nine months in prison yesterday.
On 9 January, he had pleaded guilty to the charges and was asked to pay USD 2,00,000, forfeit cash and a 2015 Land Rover that was seized in October 2018 by a Florida court. Four others have already pleaded guilty for their roles in the scam.
Between 2014 and 2016, the accused had connived with the US-based co-conspirators and impersonated Internal Revenue Service (IRS), a revenue service of the US federal government, officers to extort money from American residents.
They misled the victims in believing that they owed money to the IRS and would be arrested and fined if they did not pay their alleged taxes back immediately. The conspirators collected the fraud proceeds by withdrawing cash from prepaid cards purchased and funded by victims; hiring other conspirators (runners) to retrieve money wired by the victims to those runners; and/or hiring runners to open bank accounts into which victims deposited fraud proceeds, revealed the documents.
The defendants collected the proceeds by providing the runners with the victims’ names, locations, and amounts paid. The runners were directed to retrieve the fraud proceeds in cash and turn the funds over to the defendants, often less a payment to the runner for opening the account or conducting the transaction, according to the documents.
On 25 March, Alejandro Juarez was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison. Hemalkumar Shah, Sharvil Patel and Brenda Dozier are currently awaiting sentencing.