NEW YORK – Twenty-one Indian-origin people have been sentenced up to 20 years in prison for involvement in a multi-million dollar India-based call center scam by a United States (US) court.
The court sentenced the convicts, ranging from 4 to 20 years, who are involved in the scandal of defrauding thousands of US citizens.
“The stiff sentences imposed represent the culmination of the first-ever large-scale, multi-jurisdiction prosecution targeting the India call center scam industry,” US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement.
Many of the convicts will be deported to India after the completion of their sentence.
According to US officials, the Indian call centers in Ahmedabad used various telephone fraud schemes to defraud mainly vulnerable Americans, including the elderly and legal immigrants.
Victims who agreed to pay the scammers were instructed how to make a payment, including by purchasing stored value cards or wiring the money.
Once the payment was done, the call centers would connect to a network of runners based in the US to liquidate and launder the extorted funds as quickly as possible by purchasing reloadable cards or retrieving wire transfers, the Justice Department said.
The indictment in the case also charged 32 India-based conspirators and five India-based call centers with general conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy. These defendants are yet to be arraigned in the case.
Earlier, three other Indians were sentenced for their involvement in the same fraud and money laundering scheme.
