Fraud credit card transactions land Indians in jail

WASHINGTON: Two Indian-Americans have been arrested by the FBI on charges of siphoning off more than $5.8 million by using fraudulent debit card transactions.

Alpeshkumar Patel, 30, and Vijaykumar Patel, 39, were arrested for stealing millions of dollars by using reloadable debit cards from September 2013 to March 2014, police said.

The duo, not related to each other, is expected to be produced before a Newark court and faces an imprisonment up to 20 years and a fine of more than $250,000, if found guilty.

Explaining the modus operandi of the extortionists, the officials stated that the conspirators would purchase reloadable Green Dot cards and register them in names other than their own. The prosecutors alleged that the investigators have found links to 2,500 Green Dot cards that were funded in excess of $5.8 million.

The conspirators, some of whom located in India contacted the victims by phone and used threat or deceit to induce them to put their money on MoneyPak cards, that are used along with assigned PIN codes to add funds to Green Dot cards.

The cards were then used to purchase money orders and deposited into bank accounts, officials said.

All the steps were taken quickly so that the law enforcement agencies and the victims could not identify the culprits or reverse the fraudulent transfers, they added.