July 20 2017
An Indian national and an Indian-American have pleaded guilty to the charges of their involvement in a massive telephone impersonation fraud and money laundering scheme in the US perpetrated by India-based call centres. Montu Barot, 30, an Indian national who most recently resided in Illinois, and Indian-American Nilesh Pandya, 54, from Texas, have pleaded guilty in the multi-million call centre scam in which as many as 54 individuals and five India-based call centres have been charged, the Department of Justice said yesterday.
According to admissions made in connection with their respective pleas, Barot, Pandya, and their co-conspirators perpetrated a complex scheme in which individuals from call centres located in Ahmedabad, impersonated officials from the IRS and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and engaged in other telephone call scams, in a ruse designed to defraud victims located throughout the US.