NEW YORK: The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has said that four Indians and a Pakistani national have pleaded guilty to the charges for their role in a massive telephone impersonation fraud and money laundering scheme in the US perpetrated by India-based call centres.

According to the DoJ, four Indians Hardik Patel, 31, Rajubhai Patel, 32, Viraj Patel, 33, Dilip Kumar Ambal Patel, 53, and Fahad Ali, 25, a Pakistani national each pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy before US District Court Judge David Hittner of the Southern District of Texas.

“Sentencing dates are pending for all five defendants,” the Department of Justice said.

Patel owned and managed the day-to-day operations of an India-based scam call centre before later leaving for the US in August 2012. While in India, in his capacity as a manager, he communicated extensively via email, text, and other means with various India-based co-defendants to operate the scheme and exchange scripts used in the scheme, coordinate the processing of payments from scammed victims, obtain and exchange lead lists used by callers to target US victims, and exchange spreadsheets containing the personal identifying information (PII) of US persons misappropriated by the scammers to register reloadable cards used in the scheme,” the department added.

Meanwhile, US media published a report claiming that 56 individuals and five India-based call centres have been charged for their roles in the fraud and money-laundering scheme in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Texas on October 19, 2016.