A Gujarati fraudster who was arrested in 2024 by the FBI for a massive elderly scam was sentenced to nine years in prison by US district court in Cleveland. Judge J Philip Calabrese sentenced Shreyas Baldevbhai Chaudhary to 110 months in prison — 9 years and two months in prison — and his aide Trusha Chaudhary five years of probation.Shreyas was ordered to pay restitution of $5,164,031, and Trusha was ordered to pay $343,641.A third person in the operation Nitinkumar Raval was sentenced to 19 to 41 months in federal prison last December. He was also ordered to pay restitution of $224,902.
Unpacking the massive scam targeting the elderly
In October 2023, a man from Salem, Massachusetts, clicked on a pop-up ad and his computer was frozen with a message that asked him to contact the Microsoft security phone number provided. He called the number and spoke to someone named Howard who put the man in touch with Stacy Brown. Brown told the man that he was a victim of identity theft and had to send $11,000 worth of gift cards.It was just the beginning. Next, Brown told the man to withdraw about $61,000 and send it to them following their instructions and arrangement. The next order was to withdraw $50,000 from his bank. This was when the bank suspected something was wrong and alerted the FBI. On a given date, when a courier (Raval) came to pick up the money, the FBI took him into custody and learned that a man named ‘Al Capone’ had instructed him to pick up the package.
Raval led investigators to Al Capone aka Shreyas Baldevbhai Chaudhary
Investigators unmasked the ‘Al Capone’ as Shreyas who acted as director of couriers of US currency and property and directed the couriers to travel to various locations in the US to collect money from victims.The scam went on from December 2022 to December 2023.
Born in extreme poverty, slept on a mattress
Shreyas’s attorney pleaded for a lighter sentence and cited his childhood poverty in India. “Mr Chaudary was born and raised in the rural neighborhood of Ampura, in the state of Gujarat, India. He grew up in extreme poverty — water was scarce, his house was in poor condition, and he slept on a mattress on the floor,” the filing said.“Mr Chaudhary only has a 10th-grade education and speaks very little English. Mr Chaudhary obtained his first job at twenty-two years of age and earned only $10.49 per month,” it stated adding that Shreyas did not dispute the illegality of his behavior but prayed to the court to consider how life of extreme poverty would contribute to his decision to commit a financial crime.
