Six people are facing charges over a scam in which fake crimes were staged to allow the purported victims to apply for special visas.
Parth Nayi, 26, of Woodbridge, Illinois, and Kewon Young, 31, of Mansfield, Ohio, are accused of leading the operation in an indictment announced last week by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois.
The indictment claims Nayi took money from four other individuals and organized a fake robbery against them so they could apply for special visas, allowing them to stay in the country as a result of helping investigators solve the crime.
CWB Chicago reported that officials believe hundreds of people were involved in the scam.
The statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office said the two are suspects in alleged robberies of restaurants, coffee shops, liquor stores, and gas stations in the Chicago area, as well as restaurants in Rayne, Louisiana, and Belvidere, Tennessee.
The indictment alleges Bhikhabhai Patel, 51, of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, Nilesh Patel, 32, of Jackson, Tennessee, Ravinaben Patel, 23, of Racine, Wisconsin and Rajnikumar Patel, 32, of Jacksonville, Florida, participated in the scheme as alleged victims.
During the fake robberies, what appeared to be guns were flashed as the fake victims were approached for their money or property, according to the indictment.
CWB Chicago noted that in one incident, a supposed robber accidentally fired a real gun, injuring a liquor store clerk while five people in the store were allegedly robbed.
Step two came when the alleged victims submitted forms to have local police certify that they were crime victims and were being helpful to police, according to the U.S. Attorney’s statement. Then came fraudulent U-visa applications.
All six people face charges of conspiracy to commit visa fraud. Ravinaben Patel also faces a charge of making a false statement in a visa application. The conspiracy charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison.
The false statement charge has a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
Without naming its sources, CWB Chicago reported that police arrested one fake group of juvenile robbers, who said the victims knew about the scheme, but told police they did not know why the robberies were staged.
State charges were rarely forthcoming, CWB Chicago reported, because the amounts in the so-called robberies were so low, and the victims appeared to have consented to be robbed.
Late last year, police arrested Rambhai Patel, 36, and Balwinder Singh, 39, of New York City for a similar scam that involved at least eight fake robberies, according to the New York Post.
You can watch CBS Boston's coverage of the harrowing events below:
https://youtu.be/9ysqVmACBu0?si=Jdst8E-QF3wp970q
Other schemes go back even further. In 2019, police in Seattle said 10 people were suspected of taking part in a hoax aimed at securing U-visas for the alleged victims, according to KOMO-TV.
