WASHINGTON, April 7 (PTI): An Indian national in the US has been sentenced to 33 months in prison and ordered to pay USD 2.4 million for defrauding elderly people in America.
Ashish Bajaj, 29, pleaded guilty on August 4 last year before District Judge Kevin McNulty in Newark federal court to information charging him with conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
He was sentenced to 33 months in prison, two years of supervised release and ordered to pay USD 2.4 million in restitution for his role in an international conspiracy that preyed on elderly victims in New Jersey and throughout the US, the Department of Justice said on Thursday.
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According to documents, from April 2020 to August 2021, Bajaj and his conspirators preyed on elderly victims across the US by impersonating fraud prevention specialists from various banks, online retailers and online payment companies.
They contacted victims and falsely claimed that they were fraud prevention specialists employed by reputable companies and that the victims’ accounts with banks, online retailers, or online payments companies were being targeted for fraud.
Bajaj and his conspirators then falsely told the victims that their fraud prevention efforts required the victims’ assistance in a sting operation to catch the perpetrators, prosecutors said.
They asked the elderly victims to send money from their bank accounts to accounts controlled by them and falsely promised to return their money within a few days of the purported sting operation.
The victims were also falsely promised that once they sent the money, the sting operation would result in the arrest of the purported perpetrators. They sent international wire transfers to various banks located in India, China, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates, according to court documents.
The victims also sent money through an online application to bank accounts held by Bajaj in the United States.
They further sent cash and cashier checks to Bajaj at an address in California. The scheme resulted in losses of over USD 250,000, according to the documents.
