Indian National Extradited to United States to Face Charges for Leadership Role in Multimillion Doll

[nitpicker]

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/indian-national-extradited-united-states-face-charges-leadership-role-multimillion-dollar

Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, April 19, 2019

Indian National Extradited to United States to Face Charges for Leadership Role in Multimillion Dollar India-Based Call Center Scam Targeting U.S. Victims

An Indian national has been extradited to the United States from Singapore to face charges related to his role as an operator of a call center network that targeted U.S victims. The massive India-based telephone impersonation fraud and money laundering conspiracy defrauded thousands of U.S. residents out of hundreds of millions of dollars.
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Hitesh Madhubhai Patel, 42, of Ahmedabad, India, arrived in the United States and is scheduled to be arraigned today before a U.S. magistrate judge in federal court in Houston, Texas. The indictment, which was unsealed in October 2016, charged Patel and 60 other individuals and entities with general conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. The case is assigned to the Honorable David Hittner of the Southern District of Texas.
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Singapore authorities apprehended Patel at the request of the United States pursuant to a provisional arrest warrant on Sept. 21, 2018, after flying from India to Singapore. The Singaporean Minister for Law issued a warrant on March 25, 2019 for Patel to be delivered into custody of the United States.

The indictment alleges that Patel operated the HGlobal call center conglomerate and participated in a complex fraudulent scheme involving a network of call centers based in Ahmedabad, India. Using information obtained from data brokers and other sources, India-based conspirators allegedly called potential victims while impersonating officials from the IRS or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. According to the indictment, the call center conspirators then threatened victims with arrest, imprisonment, fines or deportation if they did not pay taxes or penalties to the government. When victims agreed to pay, the call centers used a network of U.S.-based conspirators to quickly liquidate and launder the extorted funds through the use of stored value cards or via wire transfers. As alleged in the indictment, the stored value cards were often registered by the scammers using misappropriated personal identifying information of thousands of identity theft victims, and conspirators collected the wire transfers by using fake names and fraudulent identifications.

According to the indictment, the call center conspirators also defrauded victims through other schemes, including via offering fake short-term loans or grants. The indictment alleges that the conspirators would then request a good-faith deposit to show the victims’ ability to pay back the loan or a fee to process the grant. The victims of the alleged scam never received any money after making the requested payment.
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