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.
Hitesh Madhubhai Patel, 42, of Ahmedabad, India, arrived in the United States and was arraigned Friday 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.
“Hitesh Patel operated a call center that allegedly preyed upon vulnerable U.S. citizens as part of a massive fraud scheme,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski. “This extradition once again demonstrates the Department’s unwavering commitment to disrupt and dismantle the India-based call center scam industry and to work with our foreign partners to hold accountable those who perpetrate schemes that defraud our citizens. I especially would like to thank our Singaporean colleagues for their excellent cooperation with this extradition and their commitment to combatting transnational organized crime.”
“I cannot compliment enough the hard work and effort put into this case by the agents, analysts and attorneys of the many agencies involved,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan Patrick. “Large complex international cases like these often take years to bring in foreign-based defendants. I applaud our global partners in helping bring this case closer to a conclusion.”
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.
A total of 24 domestic defendants associated with this transnational criminal scheme have previously been 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. They were also ordered to pay millions of dollars in victim restitution and money judgments and to forfeit seized assets. Some 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. The remaining India-based defendants have yet to be arraigned in this case.
