Today, 31-year-old Nishitkumar Patel was sentenced to 8 years and 9 months in jail for being a part of the India-based call center scam.

31-year-old Patel pleaded guilty in aggravated identity theft and played a huge role in an India-based call center scam.

31-year-old Patel pleaded guilty to his charges on 9 January, he has been asked by a court in Florida to pay $200,000 USD.

A 2015 Land Rover was seized from Patel in 2018.

Patel, American conspirators, and India-Based call centers extorted money from American residents by calling themselves officers from the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) from 2014 to 2016.

Between 2014 and 2016, Patel and his companions mislead the victims and said that they owed money to the Internal Revenue Service, they also said that they will be fined and arrested if they did not pay their taxes.

The Department of Justice released a statement and said, “According to court documents, from 2014 through at least 2016, Patel conspired with U.S.-based coconspirators and India-based call centers to extort money from U.S. residents by impersonating IRS officers and misleading victims to believe that they owed money to the IRS and would be arrested and fined if they did not pay their alleged back taxes immediately. The conspirators collected the fraud proceeds by (1) withdrawing cash from prepaid cards purchased and funded by victims; (2) hiring other conspirators (runners) to retrieve money wired by the victims to those runners; and/or (3) hiring runners to open bank accounts into which victims deposited fraud proceeds. The defendants collected the proceeds by providing the runners with the victims’ names, locations, and amounts paid. The runners were directed to retrieve the fraud proceeds in cash and turn the funds over to the defendants, often less a payment to the runner for opening the account or conducting the transaction.”

Recently, 4 other people were pleaded guilty in their roles in the said fraud scheme.

On 25 March, Alejandro Juarez was sentenced to spend 15 months in a federal jail.

Brenda Dozier, Hemalkumar Shah, and Sharvil Patel are yet to be sentenced.

Special Agent Mary Hammond from the IRS Criminal Investigations aid, “We here at IRS CI recognise the heartache and concern these crooks cause innocent people. This is why we are eager to team up with our law enforcement partners to track down these impersonators in whatever corner of the globe they may be hiding in.”

Treasury Inspector J Russell George for Tax Administration said, “Over the last several years, American taxpayers have been subjected to unprecedented attempts to fraudulently obtain money by individuals impersonating Internal Revenue Service employees. Victimizing taxpayers by impersonating IRS employees is a serious crime.”