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Kishore Babu Ammisetti, a citizen of India last known to live in Connecticut pleaded guilty in Bridgeport district court to one count of bank fraud stemming from a “provisional credit” scheme, U.S. Attorney John Durham announced this week.
Ammisetti, 30, admitted to using Facebook Marketplace and other media to victimize his victims, who were primarily of Indian descent by advertising items for sale or rooms for rent.
Through this scheme, Ammisetti would contact a victim to express interest in purchasing an item or renting a room. Ammisetti would then gather the victim’s bank account information and other personal information under the guise of making a deposit to the victim’s bank account. He also would offer to provide a “deposit” directly into the victim’s account through a peer-to-peer transfer.
Durham said that Ammisetti would then contact the victim’s bank, posing as his victims, claiming to have made an ATM deposit that never registered on his victims’ bank accounts.
“While researching the ‘unregistered deposit,’ the bank would credit the victim’s account with a provisional credit,” Durham said. “Ammisetti would then contact the victim and claim that the provisional credit to the victim’s bank account was a mistaken transfer by Ammisetti to the victim’s account.”
Ammisetti would then request a full or partial refund of that money, which his victims would provide through a peer-to-peer transfer. After the bank determined that there was no unregistered deposit to the victim’s account, the funds provided as a provisional credit would be removed from the account.
Durham said that Ammisetti entered the United States in 2013 on a student visa, which was revoked in 2014.
In total, Ammisetti stole no less than $860,000 from more than 400 victims. Durham noted that Ammisetti often operated the scheme while staying at casino hotels in Connecticut. Ammisetti has been detained since his arrest on Jan. 25 and he will face a maximum term of 30 years in prison when he is sentenced. No sentencing date has been scheduled.
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