Indian national in US gets 5 years jail for call centre fraud
Darpan News Desk IANS, 09 Nov, 2022 12:12 PM
New York, Nov 9 (IANS) Waseem Maknojiya, a 38 year-old Indian national, has been sentenced to five years in prison by a Texas court for committing mail fraud and duping customers via Indian call centres.
Maknojiya, who was illegally residing in Houston, had pleaded guilty on September 13, 2021, a press statement by the US Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Texas said.
On Tuesday, US District Judge Lynn N. Hughes ordered Maknojiya to serve 60 months in federal prison.
Not an American citizen, he is expected to face removal proceedings following his imprisonment.
Between April and October 2019, Maknojiya was involved in a telemarketing scheme via Indian call centres to extort money from victims in the US.
He acted as a runner in these schemes, using aliases and fake identification documents to pick up more than 70 parcels containing cash the scheme's victims had mailed, the press release stated.
One common script used in the scheme involved coercing victims into believing federal agents were investigating them.
The "agent" on the phone would convince the victim the only way to clear his or her name from investigation was to send cash in a parcel shipped through FedEx to a name and address they provided.
Runners in the US like Maknojiya would then pick up the parcels.
At the time of his plea, he agreed to pay restitution to the scheme's identified victims.
He will remain in custody pending transfer to a US Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.
A top Indian American official, Seema Verma, is leading a push for a path-breaking telemedicine initiative using laptops and phones and apps like Skype to ease the burden of growing novel coronavirus cases and the threat of infections.
Australia all-rounder Glenn Maxwell recently sported an Indian look during his Indian-style engagement ceremony to his long-time partner Vini Raman in Melbourne.
President Donald Trump proposed on Tuesday sending money to most Americans to help them tide over the coronavirus pandemic that has disrupted the US economy leading to prospects of large-scale unemployment.
China on Tuesday hit out at US President Donald Trump, who had called coronavirus a "Chinese" disease, and termed it an attempt at stigmatising the country.
UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak on Tuesday termed coronavirus as an "economic emergency" as well as "a public health emergency" as he laid out a financial plan to safeguard the country's businesses.
