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Huntington residents Kamil Zafar, 51, Jamal Zafar, 48, and College Point resident Armughanul Asar, 68, were charged in Central Islip federal court with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to launder money in furtherance of their fraudulent scheme directed at thousands of individuals in the United States.
United States Attorney Richard Donoghue said that the three were arrested on Monday, Aug. 26 and are scheduled to be arraigned this week.
“The defendants’ transnational fraud scheme utilized callers falsely claiming to be federal employees and threatening arrest to extract payment from their victims, he said.
It is alleged that between January and September last year, the three men, along with co-conspirators operating from call centers in India, targeted victims across the country, claiming to be employees of the IRS, the Social Security Administration or the Drug Enforcement Administration.
“These defendants remotely used ruthless scare tactics and threatened innocent citizens including the elderly, widows, and professionals under the guise of having to pay off unfounded financial obligations to the U.S. government for their own personal gain,” IRS-Criminal Investigation Special Agent-in-Charge Jonathan Larsen said.
Donoghue said that the victims were informed that they owed a sum of money to the United States government or one of its agencies and that they would be arrested if the debts were not promptly paid. After victims wired payments to bank accounts that the defendants had opened in the names of inactive and shell corporations to receive the fraud proceeds, the funds were withdrawn and laundered through additional bank accounts.
The scheme is estimated to have netted more than $2 million from victims across the United States. If convicted, each of the three faces up to 20 years in prison.
J. Russell George, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration added, “The victimization of American taxpayers by individuals impersonating Internal Revenue Service employees is a serious crime. I would like to thank the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, the New York City Police Department and the Garden City Police Department on their outstanding efforts resulting in this indictment.”
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