On November 13, 2025, a federal jury in Gainesville, Florida convicted 22-year-old Indian national Atharva Shailesh Sathawane on conspiracy charges of wire fraud and money laundering tied to a PayPal scam operation, where
- The scammers will contact their victims, in this case an 83-year-old male, to falsely claim $100 was sent to their PayPal account and that they needed to pay it back.
- When the victim pays the $100 back, the scammers will then falsely claim that $10,000 was sent to their account, and that they needed to pay it back at a nearby Bitcoin ATM.
- The scammer will then later claim $200,000 was sent to their account, and in order to pay it back, they need to convert it into gold coins in order to avoid paying taxes, and hand it off to a designated courier, or money mule.
Sathawane currently faces up to 40 years in prison, though given he entered the country illegally, I HOPE HE ENJOYS GAUTMO!