Jha Washington: Two Indians have been sentenced by a US court for their roles in a conspiracy to commit wire fraud by accepting illegally obtained wire transfers from elderly American citizens of over USD 600,000. Zeeshan Khan, 22, and Maaz Ahmed Shamsi, 24, were each sentenced Tuesday to 27 months in prison by US District Judge Joseph Rodriguez in a federal court in New Jersey.
Both had previously pleaded guilty to an information charging each with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. As part of this scheme, Shamsi and Khan are charged with receiving fraudulent wire transfers from 19 victims across the country totalling approximately USD 618,000, Acting US Attorney Rachael A. Honig said.
According to court documents, call centers based in India utilised automated robocalls to victims with the intent of defrauding US residents, particularly the elderly. After establishing contact with victims through these automated calls, other members of the conspiracy would coerce or trick the victims into sending large sums of cash through physical shipments or wire transfers to other members of the conspiracy, including Shamsi and Khan. These conspirators used a variety of schemes to convince victims to send money, including impersonating government officials from agencies such as the Social Security Administration, or impersonating law enforcement officers from the FBI or Drug Enforcement Administration, and threatened victims with severe legal or financial consequences if they did not comply.
Another method utilised by the callers involved convincing the victims they were speaking with someone from a tech support company and coercing the victims into granting the caller remote access to their personal computers, and through that, to the victims’ bank accounts. victims’ bank accounts, the caller would convince the victims that an overpayment was made to the victims and ultimately instruct them to send money by way of mail or wire transfer to other members of the conspiracy, including Shamsi and Khan, the Department of Justice said.
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