Indian jailed for 15 months in money laundering case in US

Washington : An Indian truck driver in the United States has been sentenced to 12 months in prison and fined 4 4,710 for money laundering and a firearm case, the Justice Department said.

Lovepreet Singh of Indiana was convicted to one count of money laundering in March. He admitted that he had accepted money on behalf of another in a fraud scheme and turned it over. He was also charged with illegal possession of a weapon.

According to the indictment against him and the details presented in the court, his scam started in 2015 and lasted till 2018. Singh was accompanied by nine others and was scattered throughout the United States and India. He committed wire fraud, mail fraud and bank fraud and the crime of money laundering. By stealing identities with him he created fake responsibilities.

The conspirators obtained telephone numbers and e-mail addresses of various individuals living in the United States, the Justice Department said. The conspirators set up various business units called World Tech Assistance & US Support Inc. in Mississippi and elsewhere in the United States.

He joined a telephone calling center in India, where he was calling a US number and appeared to be using US-based toll free numbers. According to court documents, they claimed to have come from Apple Support or Microsoft or other authoritative and well-known technical support services and talked of helping to remove the software in exchange for payment.