WASHINGTON: An Indian national in the US has pleaded guilty for his role in a multi-million dollar scam involving individuals from India-based call centres impersonating US tax and immigration officials and defrauding victims across America. New Jersey-based Harsh Patel, 28, is the third Indian national to plead guilty to the scam that hit hundreds of US citizens.
Patel, along with 50 other individuals and five India-based call centres have been charged for their roles in the fraud and money laundering scheme in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury last year in October. Admissions made in connection with the plea said Patel and his co-conspirators perpetrated a complex scheme in which individuals from call centres located in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, impersonated officials from the Internal Revenue Service or US Citizenship and Immigration Services in a ruse designed to defraud victims located across the country, the Department of Justice said in a statement.
Using information obtained from data brokers and other sources, the call centre operators targeted US victims who were threatened with arrest, imprisonment, fines or deportation if they did not pay alleged monies owed to the government. Since January 2015, Patel worked as a “runner” operating primarily in New Jersey , California and Illinois.
