This week, the BBC showed scammers at work in an Indian call centre, recorded by an activist who hacked into the company’s security cameras. Staff were seen laughing at their victims in the US and the UK. But who are these scammers, and how do they justify their actions?
Behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses, Piyush is telling me how he made a quarter of a million dollars.
“It was easy money,” he says, detailing how he bought fancy cars and wore designer clothes.
From a modest background, Piyush made a fortune by defrauding innocent victims at the other end of a phone.
“To become a rock star we have to do something,” he says.
“Become a thief?” I ask.
“Right,” he replies coolly.
Piyush meets me in a friend’s apartment, in one of Delhi’s richest neighbourhoods. The group of young men I’ve come to talk to all have one thing in common – they’ve worked in India’s scam call-centre industry.
The company Piyush worked for ran what is known as a “tech support scam”. It would send a pop-up to people’s screens, telling them their computer had been infected by a “pornographic virus” or other malware, and giving them a helpline number to call.
As panicking customers rang in, Piyush and his colleagues would milk them for money, to fix a problem that didn’t actually exist.
Piyush tells me that tricking people is an “art”.
“We used to target the old people,” he says.
“There are many old people in the US who don’t have families, are alone and are disabled, so it’s very easy to trick them.”
I look at this man sitting opposite me in his baggy jeans and hipster T-shirt and wonder how he could be so cold-hearted. How would he feel if his own grandparents were victims of scamming, I ask?
“Yeah, I will feel bad,” he says. “I did it because I needed money and that’s it.”
Brentwood woman sentenced to 13 years in prison for aiding ISIS
A Brentwood woman was sentenced Friday to 13 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to a charge of providing more than $150,000 in financial support to the ISIS terrorist organization.
Zoobia Shahnaz, 29, was in addition sentenced to 10 years of supervised release by U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert in Central Islip.
Judge Joanna Seybert said when she handed down the stiff sentence that the defendant could have found a “more peaceable” organization to work with if she really wanted to help refugees. BTW, I could not find a photo of Shahnaz so had to settle for the judge.
Shahnaz, a U.S. citizen born in Pakistan and a lab technician at a Manhattan hospital, obtained more than $85,000 of the money through a number of fraud schemes and passed the funds on to ISIS in a further complex manner, according to officials.
She was arrested in July 2017 at Kennedy Airport while attempting to board a flight to Turkey, where she intended to illegally enter Syria to join ISIS, officials have said.
Eastern District federal prosecutor Artie McConnell argued for a stiff sentence saying ISIS could have used that money to create massive destruction and death, noting that terrorist attacks around the world have been perpetrated with devices whose ingredients cost as little as $600.
Defense attorney Steven Zissou said before and after the sentencing that his client’s “only goal was to help the suffering of Syrian refugees,” after she had witnessed the carnage in Syria at refugee camps where she had volunteered.
Zissou said the average sentence of someone in his client’s position had been 11 years, with as little 4 years.
Seybert said she was leery of imposing a low sentence, saying that Shahnaz was a highly intelligent person who implemented a complex scheme. The judge noted the defendant came from a loving family and could have worked for much more peaceable organizations.
[….]
“Today, the defendant learned the consequences of seeking to join ISIS and funneling thousands of dollars into the terrorist organization’s coffers,” stated Eastern District U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue. “There is no higher priority of the Department of Justice and this Office than protecting our country from those who support violent, hate-filled terrorist organizations.”
The story is seeping out into the media even though it’s hard for any news to break through with the impeachment show going on in the Senate at the moment.
Another news story captivating the public is the Coronavirus newscoming out of China and what a funny coincidence that the virus and the Harvard professor’s alleged secretive dealings both involve Wuhan, China. I am not implying a connection!
I’ll bet the vast majority of Americans (including me) never heard of Wuhan before this past week.
Here is one of many stories, this one at The Economistwith this intriguing photo and the headline:
An American chemist is suspected of illegal dealings with China
Here are the opening paragraphs, but alas a subscription is required to read more. We can fix that because all the news you need to know is in a press release from the US Justice Department(h/t: Cathy):
In 2013 Charles Lieber, a pioneer of nanoscience who is now the chairman of Harvard University’s chemistry department, visited the Wuhan University of Technology (WUT), in China, to celebrate the founding of a lab he was credited by that university with helping to establish and oversee: the WUT-Harvard Joint Nano Key Laboratory. It was a remarkable coup. WUT is an institution of little renown. Harvard is generally regarded as the top of the academic tree. And Dr Lieber, whose research has since become part of Elon Musk’s ambitious scheme to supercharge the human brain with nanotechnology, has been seen as a potential Nobel laureate.
Harvard’s officials had not, however, approved the laboratory and did not know about it until early 2015, according to the us Department of Justice. Nor did they know that while conducting his research with grants from the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr Lieber was, according to federal authorities, also being paid up to $50,000 a month by WUT, plus at least $150,000 in “living expenses”, as a prized recruit in China’s Thousand Talents programme to bring foreign scientists, and return Chinese expatriates, to that country’s research laboratories.
See the releasefor more details and to learn about the Chinese nationals also charged with various crimes. The DOJ says the three cases involve China, but are unrelated. However, they were all conducted as part of President Trump’s Department of Justice China Initiative described in the release.
Zaosong Zheng
Yanqing Ye, 29, a Chinese national, was charged in an indictment today with one count each of visa fraud, making false statements, acting as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy. Ye is currently in China.
Zaosong Zheng, 30, a Chinese national, was arrested on Dec. 10, 2019, at Boston’s Logan International Airport and charged by criminal complaint with attempting to smuggle 21 vials of biological research to China. On Jan. 21, 2020, Zheng was indicted on one count of smuggling goods from the United States and one count of making false, fictitious or fraudulent statements. He has been detained since Dec. 30, 2019.
[….]
These case are part of the Department of Justice’s China Initiative, which reflects the strategic priority of countering Chinese national security threats and reinforces the President’s overall national security strategy. In addition to identifying and prosecuting those engaged in trade secret theft, hacking and economic espionage, the initiative will increase efforts to protect our critical infrastructure against external threats including foreign direct investment, supply chain threats and the foreign agents seeking to influence the American public and policymakers without proper registration.
It looks like all involved are Americans (LOL! I am, after all, fair and balanced here at Frauds and Crooks!). I’m stuck with posting a photo of the university since I could not find a photo of the researcher who lied or the whistleblower who is now rich!
But, I’m bringing you this news for several reasons and first and foremost I want you to know that a whistleblower filed a lawsuit that provided information about how research data was being fudged (for years!) and has been awarded $33 million as a reward under the False Claims Act.
Good for him! So keep an eye on possible opportunities for you to turn in someone or some institution that is defrauding Uncle Sam! Continue reading “Duke University Ordered to Repay the Federal Government (you!) $112 Million for Grant Fraud”→
Our law enforcement caught up with him in Canada! Dr. Mansourov had gotten as far as Canada and had purchased a plane ticket to Moscow. (From Russia to America with love!)
Behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses, Piyush is telling me how he made a quarter of a million dollars.
