New York: In an ongoing US crackdown on Indian call-centre fraud, a 23-year-old Indian was sentenced to over seven years in federal prison by a US court for being involved in a conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

The convicted has been identified as Sharvil Patel. He was sentenced by Judge Virginia Hernandez Covington to seven years and six months in prison on Thursday, May 30. A fine of $80,000 was also slapped on him. 

Patel is now the third Indian to be sentenced for involvement in call centre scams. In March and April, two Indians belonging to Shravil Patel’s ring, Nishitkumar Patel (31) and Hemalkumar Shah (27) were sentenced to eight years and nine months and eight and a half years respectively.

Brenda Dozier and Alejandro Juarez, who were also involved, were sentenced to 21 months and 15 months in prison respectively.

Mehboob Mansurali Charania, also an Indian, was sentenced last month in Atlanta to 16 months in prison and ordered to repay over $200,000 to his victims.

According to court documents, between 2014 and 2016, Patel, his US-based co-conspirators and India-based call centres, conspired to extort money from US residents by impersonating Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officers. They led victims to believe that they owed money to the IRS and even threatened them with arrest if they did not pay their alleged back taxes immediately.

More than 15,000 victims suffered losses of over $75 million since October 2013 to conmen impersonating tax officials, according to Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration Russell George.