PIO gets over 3-year jail term for fraud

Washington, Aug. 16: An Indian-American man has been sentenced to 40 months in prison for cheating victims in a telephone fraud scheme, an official has said. Anandkumar Jayantila Nayee was held responsible for at least $150,000 in victim losses during the telephone fraud scheme, said Benjamin Greenberg, acting United States attorney for the Southern District of Florida.

From January 2014 to early 2017, Nayee, who had previously pleaded guilty, conspired with others to defraud victims in an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) impersonator impersonator scam, according to court documents.

His co-conspirators contacted victims by telephone and made fraudulent representations to them, including that the victims owed income tax payments to the IRS or owed fees for grants or loans that they had purportedly received.

Nayee’s co-conspirators instructed the victims to deposit payments related to the taxes or fees that they purportedly owed onto debit cards and into bank accounts controlled by Nayee and his co-conspirators.

Nayee and his co-conspirators then received and retained the victims’ payments, federal prosecutors alleged.

As per court papers, from January 2014 through February 28, 2014, a co-conspirator baught Green Dot prepaid debit cards and provided the full debit card numbers to Nayee, who resided in India at the time.

Nayee caused the prepaid debit cards to be registered in the names of real people. The coconspirator used the prepaid debit cards to purchase money orders and deposited the them into accounts specified by Nayee who moved to Miami in 2015.