Defendant sentenced in phone scams targeting North Georgia, Rabun residents

A scammer has been sentenced to serve time behind bars for his involvement in a transnational criminal organization that victimized over 340 people.

According to U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak, “Mehboob Mansurali Charania used lies, intimidation, and fear to extort or outright steal from unsuspecting citizens.”

The fraudulent India-based call-center scheme extorted more than $200,000 from North Georgia residents, some of whom resided within Rabun County limits according to Pak.

The defendant took part in a scheme organized in India, that included a network of call centers. Call center operators called Georgia-based residents over the telephone and misled the potential victims into sending money utilizing a number of different confidence scams.

According to law enforcememnt, the scams included impersonation scams where the callers pretended to be Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) employees demanding payment of taxes and fees. Other scams included grant scams where callers directed victims to pay upfront fees for fictitious grants, student loan scams where callers threatened victims if they did not pay fictitious taxes and fees associated with student loans, and hacking scams where callers would gain remote access to the victim’s computer, lock the victim out of the computer, and deny access to the computer until the victim provided payment – all of these scams that Rabunites are much too familiar with.

If the victims agreed to pay, the call centers would have the victims send the funds to the attention of fictitious names used by Charania through wire transfers, including through MoneyGram and Western Union. Charania also would conduct money transfers by transferring proceeds to bank accounts as directed by an individual in India.

Charania, a citizen of India who moved to North Georgia in 2014, pleaded guilty to engaging in an unlicensed money transfer business.

He has been sentenced to one year, four months in prison to be followed by three years supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution of $203,958.02 to victims of the scheme.