Indian-American Sentenced To More Than 14 Years For Massive “Call Center” Fraud Scheme

The ringleader of an extortion ring that collected more than $1 million by impersonating FBI and IRS officials was sentenced to more than 14 years in Manhattan federal prison.

Sahil Patel, 36, of Tatamy, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to 175 months in prison and ordered to forfeit $1 million for organizing the U.S. side of a massive fraud and extortion ring run through "call centers" located in India. Announcing the sentence, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, FBI Assistant Director in Charge Diego Rodriguez, and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration Deputy Inspector General Timothy P. Camus described how Patel and his co-conspirators impersonated American law enforcement officials and threatened victims with arrest and financial penalties unless they paid to avoid purported charges.

Patel had pleaded guilty in January 2015 before U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who imposed the sentence.

"Sahil Patel's elaborate scheme involved impersonating law enforcement officers and using intimidation and fear to bilk over a million dollars from hundreds of unsuspecting victims," Bharara said.

The scheme ran from December 2011 until Patel's arrest on December 18, 2013. Call centers in India employed English-speaking workers who placed thousands of calls to people in the United States, armed with long lists of potential victims — referred to by Patel and his co-conspirators as "lead sheets." The callers impersonated FBI and IRS officials, threatening financial penalties and arrest over fabricated financial crimes, and collected at least $1.2 million. The ring masked its tracks with anonymized voice-over-internet technology registered under fraudulent names, and used layers of wire transactions to conceal the destination of the payments.

In addition to the prison sentence, Patel was sentenced to three years of supervised release. "The nature of this crime robbed people of their identities and their money in a way that causes people to feel they have been almost destroyed," Judge Hellerstein said at sentencing.

If you have been targeted by this scam, you can report the incident to TIGTA at www.tigta.gov by clicking the IRS Impersonation Scam Reporting tab in the upper right corner, or call the TIGTA hotline at 1-800-366-4484.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice