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The Indian-American leader of an international extortion ring that stretched as far as India, has been sentenced to 14 and a half years in prison for bilking unsuspecting victims by posing as American law enforcement officials.
Sahil Patel, 34, of Tatamy, Pennsylvania, who led the U.S. side of the international ploy, pleaded guilty this January before U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who imposed the 175 month sentence July 8. The audacious scheme used “call centers” in India to contact hundreds of American tax payers, threatening them with dire legal action if they did not pay up for fabricated infractions. Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, under whose jurisdiction the case fell, said Patel’s elaborate scheme had bilked more than a million dollars from hundreds of unsuspecting victims, each of them doling out a few hundred for fear of being prosecuted.
Patel has to pay $1 million in forfeiture for his role in organizing the U.S. side of the fraud that took place from Dec. 2011 to Dec. 18, 2013, the day he was caught. Patel provided “Lead sheets” of potential names whom the Indian call centers systematically called posing as FBI or IRS officials and threatening them with financial penalties and arrest for cooked-up crimes.
A large number of those called were of Indian descent, including this reporter. The FBI sent out warnings nationwide about the scam upon discovering it.
Patel et al masked their identities by using anonymized voice-over-Internet technology to get numbers under fraudulent names that appeared to be related to U.S. law enforcement agencies. They also used several layers of wire transactions in order to conceal the destination and nature of the extorted payments, which totaled at least $1.2 million dollars.
In addition to the prison sentence, Patel was sentenced to three years of supervised release. Law enforcement agencies are asking any more victims to report the crime.
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