We are all aware of many money laundering scams where fraudsters mainly targeted H1B and H4 visa holders. H1BWiki has posted many articles about these scams.
- http://h1bwiki.com/uscis-911-scam-phone-calls/
- http://h1bwiki.com/h-1b-immigration-scam-one-incident/
- http://h1bwiki.com/h1b-lottery-scam-beware/
Two Indians Alpeshkumar Patel, 30, and Vijaykumar Patel, 39 from Philadelphia were arrested by special agents of the FBI, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) for indulging in money laundering scams. From September 2013 through March 2014, Alpeshkumar Patel and Vijaykumar Patel were indulged in stealing money using reloadable debit cards. According to the sources, they made about $5.8 million out of these scams.
These fraudsters would buy reloadable Green Dot Cards on some bogus names. Fraudsters had a team in India, who calls victims claiming to be a DHS or UCSIS officer. They used to threatens victims and ask them to buy MoneyPak cards which are widely available everywhere, to add funds to their Green Dot Cards. The fraudsters then transfer money into their bank accounts with these reloadable debit cards. All these things were done so quick making it difficult for law enforcement to identify or prevent or reverse these money laundering scams.
On September 10, 2013 a retail store manager in New Jersey received a call from an unknown person. The caller threatened the store manager that he has 5 minutes to agree to his demands or else bomb would explode. Then the caller demanded store manager to load 10 MoneyPak cards, each card worth $500 and provide him with PIN codes. As demanded by the caller the store manager provided PIN code for one card to the caller, by that time law enforcement arrived to the store and asked store manager to hang up the call and evacuated the store.
As store manager provided PIN code for one Moneypak card before law enforcement arrived, that $500 associated with a PIN was transferred to an existing prepaid reloadable Green Dot Card. This Green Dot Card was purchased by Alpeshkumar Patel and was caught in surveillance video while purchasing it in Philadelphia CVS. Vijaykumar Patel, used this Green Dot Card which was purchased by Alpeshkumar Patel to purchase money orders in a Philadelphia Walmart and was caught on a surveillance video. They used these money orders to deposit funds in to a bank account.
If any website or a person requesting for payment via MoneyPak cards is likely a scam. So, be aware of this situation and avoid being a victim of these money laundering scams.
I cant stop telling this. But I am pretty much sure these crooks are from USA ( United states of Andhra ) . The most H1B fraudsters in US. I dont know how they do it. But most of them are fake and cannot even speak proper english. I dont know how they get this “highly skilled” visa. They join companies here and outsource work to India. They speak telugu all over the office and destroys the culture. Play politics and even throw out americans from office. These people are like plague. USCIS should put a filter in their algorithm to deny visas of people from state = Andhra. But you know these people will find a workaround and play that system too.
A Hole, they are PATELS from GUJARAT. You must be one of them too. Well, it’s not about where they are from, they are just criminals whether from Gujarat or from Andhra or from Kerala or from any state/country in that matter. STFU!
Looks like there are more scammers…just got a call today from 911.
They should never come out…disgrace to india
How did they get name and numbers of H1 and H4 people?? Where is that info getting leaked out from? I’m concerned about that!
How did you guys get this information? I dont see this in news
These guys are operating out of india in Hyderabad. Many call centers, unfortunately FBI is not looking at these crimes seriously. I lost $18000. Is US government listening? please help us….
People like this in diffrent country and came here for livelyhood .. making our lives miserable and something like digging our own graves by allowing such a kind of frauds to say these guys are indians…
They are Gujjus. They want to generate money in anyway. Bunch of scammers!!
Stop racial profiling. They were a bunch of criminals and associating an entire caste/race with their actions is insensitive and stupid.
Are you jealous because lot of Gujjus are making money in right way? If you think they’re scammers, why don’t you move back to India and join movement against politicians who are corrupted and non-gujju. Please think 100 times before you post anything against any community as this is global forum. Stop acting stupid & grow up.
This absolutely disgusts me.. Being an Indian, I hate saying that these crooks are Indians as well,. lets name them criminals and fraudsters instead of Indians. They don’t deserve to be.