California liquor store owner sentenced to 9 years for India based"your SSN connected to crime" scam

[Demovictory9]

*** i get these scam calls***

Man gets 9 years for collecting fraud proceeds from elderly victims

Anuj “Mike” Patel, 32, of Lake Elsinore, picked up money mailed by victims who were told that their Social Security numbers were linked to crimes, and that warrants had been issued for their arrests. Victims were told that, to clear the warrants, they should withdraw their savings and send cash by mail to what turned out to be co-conspirators in the scheme.

Patel — who was ordered to pay $490,500 in restitution — pleaded guilty in March 2021 to one federal count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

From April 2019 to March 2020, members of the conspiracy, some of whom are believed to be in India, telephoned victims and pretended to be government employees or law enforcement officers.

Using false pretenses — including phony badge numbers and spoofed government telephone numbers — the scheme’s members convinced victims that their identities or assets were in trouble.

Those who were targeted were ordered to send parcels with cash to addresses in Riverside, Los Angeles and San Diego counties through shipping companies that allowed recipients to pick up their mail so long as they had identification matching the addressee.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/man-gets-9-years-for-collecting-fraud-proceeds-from-elderly-victims/ar-AAUweiM

Bagman for India-based telemarketing scam gets 9 years in prison
Elderly victims were scared into believing they faced arrest because their Social Security numbers had been linked to a crime.

Once the impostors had convinced the victims, they directed them to send as much as much as $100,000 in cash in FedEx and other parcels to Southern California pickup locations such as Walgreens stores. Patel recruited and paid local couriers a few hundred dollars to pick up the parcels using fake IDs. He managed the proceeds of the fraud on behalf of his co-conspirators in India while keeping a percentage for himself.

The scheme came apart when Homeland Security agents picked up some of Patel's couriers who had collected a suspicious package at a Walgreens. From there, investigators tracked the deliveries to Patel's liquor store in Lake Elsinore, where they found opened parcels sent by the fraud victims in the trash.

After his arrest, Patel told investigators that he was responsible for laundering the money, saying he changed the money "from black to white."

According to his attorney Diane Bass, Patel didn't know his co-conspirators in India targeted seniors and that he only received 2% of the stolen money. She also minimized Patel's role in the scam, arguing that his liquor store was just a convenient meeting place and that some unidentified individuals picked up the stolen money from there.

https://www.courthousenews.com/bagman-for-india-based-telemarketing-scam-gets-9-years-in-prison/