Baltimore, Maryland - United States District Judge Richard D. Bennett sentenced Zulquarnain Qureshi, age 71, of Windsor Mill, Maryland, to nine months in prison, followed by one year of supervised release, should he return to the United States, for Procurement of Citizenship Unlawfully. Qureshi plead guilty to the offense on February 5, 2018. As part of the plea agreement, Qureshi was denaturalized and agreed to be removed from the United States.
The sentence was announced by the United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Robert K. Hur and Special Agent in Charge Richard Ingram of the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), Washington Field Office.
According to his plea agreement, Qureshi fraudulently obtained the passport of a citizen of the United Kingdom and used it to enter the United States in June 1999. Qureshi then lived in the United States, and worked and traveled abroad under that false identity until his Aug. 15, 2017 arrest in Baltimore, Maryland. During the intervening years, Qureshi married a succession of three United States citizens while maintaining his marriage to a woman in his native Pakistan. Through his second marriage, Qureshi was able to obtain lawful permanent resident status as the spouse of a United States citizen.
Qureshi, using the assumed identity, filed for United States citizenship, which was granted, and took the oath on Aug. 10, 2016. The day before a new United States passport was to be sent to Qureshi, Her Majesty’s Passport Office alerted American law enforcement to the fraud. The passport was not delivered and an investigation was undertaken.
United States Attorney Robert K. Hur commended the DSS, the United Kingdom’s Border Force and Passport Office and HSI for their work in the investigation. Mr. Hur thanked Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian M. Fish who is prosecuting the case.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
