Tampa, FL - U.S. District Judge Virginia Hernandez Covington has sentenced Hemalkumar Shah (27, citizen of India, residing in Tampa) to eight years and six months in federal prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft related to his participation in an Indian call center scam. As part of Shah’s sentence, the court also entered a money judgment of $80,000.
Shah had pleaded guilty on Jan. 28, 2019.
According to court documents, from 2014 through at least 2016, Shah conspired with U.S.-based co-conspirators and India-based call centers to extort money from U.S. residents by impersonating IRS officers and misleading victims to believe that they owed money to the IRS and would be arrested and fined if they did not pay their alleged back taxes immediately. The conspirators collected the fraud proceeds by (1) withdrawing cash from prepaid cards purchased and funded by victims; (2) hiring other conspirators (runners) to retrieve money wired by the victims to those runners; and/or (3) hiring runners to open bank accounts into which victims deposited fraud proceeds. The defendants collected the proceeds by providing the runners with the victims’ names, locations, and amounts paid. The runners were directed to retrieve the fraud proceeds in cash and turn the funds over to the defendants, often less a payment to the runner for opening the account or conducting the transaction.
Four others previously pleaded guilty for their roles in the scheme. On March 25, 2019, Alejandro Juarez was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison, and on March 29, 2019, Nishitkumar Patel was sentenced to 8 years and 9 months’ imprisonment. Sharvil Patel and Brenda Dozier are currently awaiting sentencing.
This case was investigated by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), the Internal Revenue Service - Criminal Investigation, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, the Tampa Police Department, and the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Rachel K. Jones.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
