On February 4, 2025, a federal jury in Toledo, Ohio convicted two Indian nationals for their participation in a money laundering conspiracy with stolen money from victims in Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Indiana:
- 27-year-old Pranay Kumar Mamidi
- 26-year-old Kishan Vinayak Patel
The two, alongside several other co-conspirators, engaged in what is dubbed a “phantom hacker” scam, in which:
- The scammers will contact their victims under the guise of a customer service representative with a store or bank, such as Amazon, to falsely claim suspicious activity was done on their accounts.
- The victim will then be transferred to a co-worker who will pose as an agent with the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and falsely claim their identity was stolen.
- The call will then go to another coworker posing as an agent with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to accuse the victim of facilitating fraud and threaten to arrest them if they don’t hand over their life savings to a designated money mule.
The two face a maximum of 20 years in prison for each count. Six other defendants were named and have pled guilty for their crimes:
- 26-year-old Dileep Kumar Sakineni from India
- 26-year-old Balaji Rakesh Mulpuri from India
- 22-year-old Avi Jitendrakumar Patel from India
- 25-year-old Sai Hruthik Thodeti from India
- 31-year-old Srinivas Ravi Valluru from India
- 33-year-old Hiren Jagdishbhai Patel from Columbus, Ohio.