Indian national in US gets 5 years jail for call centre fraud
Darpan News Desk IANS, 09 Nov, 2022 12:12 PM
New York, Nov 9 (IANS) Waseem Maknojiya, a 38 year-old Indian national, has been sentenced to five years in prison by a Texas court for committing mail fraud and duping customers via Indian call centres.
Maknojiya, who was illegally residing in Houston, had pleaded guilty on September 13, 2021, a press statement by the US Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Texas said.
On Tuesday, US District Judge Lynn N. Hughes ordered Maknojiya to serve 60 months in federal prison.
Not an American citizen, he is expected to face removal proceedings following his imprisonment.
Between April and October 2019, Maknojiya was involved in a telemarketing scheme via Indian call centres to extort money from victims in the US.
He acted as a runner in these schemes, using aliases and fake identification documents to pick up more than 70 parcels containing cash the scheme's victims had mailed, the press release stated.
One common script used in the scheme involved coercing victims into believing federal agents were investigating them.
The "agent" on the phone would convince the victim the only way to clear his or her name from investigation was to send cash in a parcel shipped through FedEx to a name and address they provided.
Runners in the US like Maknojiya would then pick up the parcels.
At the time of his plea, he agreed to pay restitution to the scheme's identified victims.
He will remain in custody pending transfer to a US Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.
The Madhya Pradesh government said on Friday that 46 students from the state who registered with the Chief Minister's helpline are safe in Ukraine. However, it is not known exactly how many students from the state are stranded in the war-hit country.
The announcement came shortly after President Vladimir Putin authorised a "special military operation" in the conflict-hit Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. Flights to Kiev, Dnepr, Lvov and Odessa airports "are restricted due to potential hazard for civil aviation
The United Nations refugee agency said on Thursday that the situation was quickly deteriorating after Russia's invasion. It appealed to neighbouring countries to keep their borders open to people seeking a safe haven.
There are an estimated 25,000 Indian students in Ukraine alone who are pursuing medicine, engineering, and science courses. More than 2,500 students from Tamil Nadu are estimated to be studying in Ukraine.
The Foreign Secretary stated that External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has spoken to his Polish, Romanian, Hungarian, and Slovakian counterparts for setting up a camp at border areas for evacuation of stranded Indian nationals. He also stated that flight options are available through Dubai and Istanbul and that the Indian Embassy continues to be operational in Ukraine.
The Ministry of External Affairs in touch with all the neighbouring countries surrounding Ukraine to even evacuate Indian citizens. Many citizens who were to fly back to India were left at the airport after closure of Ukrainian airspace following Russia's Vladimir Putin announcement of a military operation in Ukraine.
