Two men from India, who lived for a time in Boalsburg, are being charged by federal prosecutors in New Jersey with playing a part in a ring of international college-aged “money mules” in scams that used robocalls to defraud people of money.
According to court documents filed on July 22, Maaz Ahmed Shamsi, 23, and Zeeshan Khan, 22, conspired with others to use a scheme to defraud elderly victims from January to June 2020.
The criminal complaint states that Shamsi and Khan received or attempted to receive more than $618,000 in a wire fraud conspiracy from a total of 17 nationwide victims. None of the victims were from Centre County.
The pair were allegedly part of a ring of college-aged “money mules,” recruited from the International Institute of Hotel Management in Kolkata, India, sent to the U.S. specifically to collect the proceeds from the transnational fraud.
The criminal complaint alleges that Shamsi and Khan were acting as mules for various schemes in which victims were defrauded out of their money by call centers in India. The money was then allegedly deposited via wire transfer into bank accounts operated by Shamsi and Khan.
Shamsi and Khan allegedly opened a dozen bank accounts, some in State College and in other parts of Pennsylvania, as well as in New Jersey and New York, to collect the money before it was sent to South Korea, China and Hong Kong.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that more than a half-dozen others linked to the hotel management school have been arrested since January in New Jersey, Texas and Colorado on similar charges, and said that each of those students came to the U.S. as part of a work-study program giving foreign students an opportunity to be interns at American resorts.
Both men arrived at Philadelphia International Airport on Nov. 2. 2019, from DOHA International Airport in Qatar.
On Nov. 18, they applied for Social Security numbers in State College and provided a State College address. Later, when they opened a bank account used to defraud a victim in Maryville Tenn., they used the address of an apartment on East Boal Avenue in Boalsburg.
There is no indication about where they were living at the time of their arrest in New Jersey on July 30.
The arrests are part of a larger federal investigation of multiple criminal schemes by individuals operating one or more call centers believed to be in India, who impersonate U.S. government officials, including SSA, and well-known businesses by “spoofing” legitimate phone numbers and sending recorded messages that are transmitted across the internet to the phones of American consumers.
The criminal complaint says, “these robocalls claim to be from federal government agencies, elements of foreign governments and/or legitimate businesses, conveying alarming messages, such as: the consumer’s Social Security number or other personal information has been compromised or otherwise connected to criminal activity; the consumer faces imminent arrest; their assets are being frozen; their bank and credit accounts have suspect activity; their benefits are being stopped; they face imminent deportation; or combinations of these things — all false statements intended to induce consumers to speak to the fraudsters.
“When consumers answer the calls or return voicemail messages, the fraudsters offer to ‘resolve’ these legal matters by immediate transfers of funds to settle the purported legal obligation, or to hold the consumer’s assets only temporarily while the crisis resolves. In reality, the consumer is neither under investigation nor in legal jeopardy, and the same threatening robocall was made simultaneously to thousands of other U.S. consumers.”
The investigation revealed that from October 2018 to September 2019, the SSA alone received more than 465,000 complaints from U.S. consumers about callers impersonating SSA officials.
Consumer losses associated with these complaints exceed $14 million. Similarly, the Federal Trade Commission estimates that more than 76,000 U.S. consumers filed complaints about fraudulent SSA impersonations, with estimated consumer losses reaching approximately $19 million between April 2018 and March 2019.
In March 2019, the Foundation for Worldwide International Student Exchange received information concerning participants in the Omni Orlando Championgate Student and Exchange Visitor Program being involved in fraudulent activity. The criminal complaint states that according to the information provided to WISE, an exchange visitor involved in the program heard rumors that participating students were engaged in a bank fraud scheme.
The exchange visitor explained that the fraud involved students being recruited by “dealers” to open multiple bank accounts with different financial institutions. The accounts were then used to receive large wire transfers and the money was withdrawn by the students in the United States and provided to the “dealers” to be returned to India. Each participating student received a percentage of the money transfer.
The criminal complaint said that those participating in the fraud originate from the Kolkata campus of the International Institute of Hotel Management University of India.
