Indian national gets 20-year jail for running call centers that defrauded US citizens

Washington: A US court Monday sentenced an Indian national to 20 years in prison followed by three years of supervised release for his role in operating and funding India-based call centers that defrauded American people of millions of dollars between 2013 and 2016.

Hitesh Madhubhai Patel (44) of Ahmedabad was sentenced by US District Judge for the Southern District of Texas David Hittner.

He was sentenced for the charges of wire fraud conspiracy and general conspiracy to commit identification fraud, access device fraud, money laundering, and impersonation of a federal officer or employee.

Patel was also ordered to pay restitution of USD 8,970,396 to identified victims of his crimes.

“The defendant defrauded vulnerable US victims out of tens of millions of dollars by spearheading a conspiracy whose members boldly impersonated federal government officials and preyed on victims’ fears of adverse government action,” said Acting Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

For years, Patel preyed on the fears of his victims to perpetuate a global scheme to manipulate US institutions and taxpayers, said Special Agent in Charge Mark B Dawson of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Houston.

According to admissions in his plea agreement, Patel and his co-conspirators perpetrated a complex scheme in which employees from call centers in Ahmedabad impersonated officials from the IRS and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and engaged in other telephone call scams designed to defraud victims throughout the country.

US victims were threatened with arrest, imprisonment, fines or deportation if they did not pay alleged monies owed to the government.

Those who fell victim were instructed how to provide payment, including by purchasing general purpose reloadable (GPR) cards or wiring money.

Upon payment, the call centers would immediately turn to a network of “runners” based in the United States to liquidate and launder the fraudulently obtained funds, federal prosecutors alleged.

In his plea, Patel admitted to operating and funding several India-based call centers from which the fraud schemes were perpetrated, including the call center HGLOBAL.

Patel corresponded by email and WhatsApp messaging frequently with his co-defendants to exchange credit card numbers, telephone scam scripts, and call center operations instructions.

The scripts included IRS impersonation, USCIS impersonation, Canada Revenue Agency impersonation, Australian Tax Office impersonation, payday loan fraud, US Government grant fraud, and debt collection fraud.

Patel was prosecuted in the United States after being extradited from Singapore in April 2019 to face charges in this large-scale telefraud and money laundering scheme.

Singapore authorities apprehended Patel at the request of the United States pursuant to a provisional arrest warrant in September 2018, after Patel flew there from India.

The indictment in this case, which was unsealed in October 2016, charged Patel and 60 other individuals and entities with general conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy.

A total of 24 domestic defendants associated with this transnational criminal scheme were previously convicted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment of up to 20 years in the Southern District of Texas, District of Arizona and Northern District of Georgia.

The defendants were also ordered to pay millions of dollars in victim restitution and money judgments and to forfeit seized assets.

Some defendants were ordered to be deported based on their illegal immigration status, with another defendant having his U.S. citizenship revoked due to a separate conviction for immigration fraud.

Charges remain pending for other India-based defendants.