Chirag Sachdeva, an Indian man has been arrested for trying to steal around $600,000 through a telemarketing scam which involved seven elderly people staying in the United States. Chirag has pleaded guilty against these charges and has been scheduled for the final sentence on December 8, 2020.
This entire scam was based in India. The thirty-year-old felon, however, was arrested when getting off a plane in Boston when returning from India. FBI arrested Chirag on February 16, 2020. Since then, he has been in the custody.
According to the statement made by the US Department of Justice, Sachdeva pleaded guilty on September 15, 2020, when brought in front of John J McConnell Jr, the US District Court Chief Judge.
Chirag admitted that he did attempt to illegally acquire funds from the bank accounts of those seven victims. As per the records, all of his victims were over 65 years old and belonged to different places across the USA. He further cleared that he demanded victims’ personal as well as banking details to accomplish a telemarketing scheme based out of India.
In this scam, the scammer offered these victims some kind of computer protection services and convinced them of protecting them from the malware detected on their computers. These guys called the older citizens from the US and asked for their personal and banking information to protect them from the malware present on their computers. They also asked for remote access to gain access to victims’ computers.
After acquiring the personal and banking details, Chirag admitted that he along with others tried to misappropriate funds from the banks of these victims. The guy even called his acquaintance in Rhode Island to ask for his help in this entire plan. His friend in crime helped to steal funds from the bank accounts of US citizens.
As per the FBI investigation, the intended loss from all the seven victims totals $600,000.
What Chirag did not know was his acquaintance from Rhode Island was assisting the FBI team in cracking the fraud and getting hold of Chirag.
In the US, the wire fraud crimes end with 20 years in federal prison. This includes three years of supervised release as well as a fine of $250,000.