A map showing the locations to which fraudster Nirav Patel traveled to pick up cash and valuables from elderly scam victims (U.S. Department of Justice photo)

A native of India who was in the United States illegally has been sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for his role in a fraud conspiracy that victimized an 85-year old Madison County widow, among other victims.

Nirav Patel, 44, formerly of Aurora, was arrested in Edwardsville on April 20, 2023 when he attempted to pick up $35,000 from an 85-year-old retired university professor who’d recently lost her husband. Patel had told the woman he was an official of the U.S. government and that he was investigating her for tax evasion and that she was required to make a payment.

In June 2023, then-U.S. Attorney Rachel Aud Crowe announced Patel’s indictment on federal charges. In total, Patel personally made six trips picking up, or attempting to pick up, $403,400 from elderly victims in Illinois Indiana and Wisconsin.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Reed and then-assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Weinhoeft (who is now the U.S. attorney for Southern Illinois) secured a conviction last December.

Patel faced 87 to 108 months in prison under federal sentencing guidelines, but Reed and Weinhoeft urged the court to impose a sentence one-third longer than the high end. They argued that Patel’s role in the fraud scheme was not a less-culpable “just a courier” kind of role.

“Without people on the ground in the United States, these schemes cannot operate with the same success,” they said. “Sending the message that this kind of conduct will not be tolerated will go a long way to deterring future crimes.”

After police in Merrill, Wisconsin stopped Patel near another elderly victim’s home in 2022 and questioned him, he fled the Midwest and joined his co-conspirators in Georgia, where he laid low for four months. In arguing for an enhanced sentence, prosecutors noted that Patel went right back to doing what he was doing even after getting stopped, because he “got the message that crime pays and risk is low.”

“Because money mules like Patel are recruited from relatively small and insular immigrant communities full of law-abiding immigrants, there is now an obvious opportunity to amplify the opposite message,” prosecutors said. “That crimes like Patel’s do not pay. Indeed, cases like this one are closely covered by Indian-American media.”

The government was scathing in its sentencing memo, mincing no words in describing Patel’s criminal acts and the pain and suffering he caused victims.

“Patel’s actions in this case were despicable,” prosecutors said. “He came to the United States illegally, preyed on the life savings of hard-working Americans, lied to law enforcement, and continued to target the elderly even after Wisconsin police talked to him.”

The prosecution described Patel as he watched a 77-year- old victim identified as V.L. “totter out of the assisted living facility and slowly walk to his waiting car. V.L. had a heavy box with $188,000 in gold. She was supported by a walker and wearing her oxygen tube.”

Prosecutors said Patel’s criminal actions “had an incalculable impact on his elderly victims.”

The fraudsters gained the trust of V.B. the 85-year old, retired university professor, with a story about compromised bank accounts and Patel being a federal agent trying to help. When the scammers obtained a copy of V.B.’s driver’s license, they “mercilessly hounded her for information about her bank accounts.”

“From March 20 to April 20, there are over 200 calls,” the prosecution said, “at least one every single day, and countless text messages in addition to that. On some days, she was on the phone for over 12 hours.”

“By the end of this month-long barrage of attacks on her psyche,” prosecutors said, “V.B. was falling apart.”

The government quoted text messages from V.B. with narratives including “Home and not looking forward to anything!” and “I would be better off behind bars.”

The government also underscored the sheer scale of victimization wrought by such fraud schemes throughout the country. In 2024 alone, they noted, the Federal Trade Commission received 845,806 reports from victims like V.L., V.B. and others with total losses of $2.95 billion.

In addition to senior fraud, Patel was also convicted for entering the United States illegally. Evidence showed that Patel sneaked into the United States near Vancouver and moved throughout Washington, Tennessee, Georgia, New Jersey and elsewhere.

Patel took the witness stand and testified that he moved to the Chicago suburbs because he was able to acquire an Illinois driver’s license despite being in the United States unlawfully. Soon after, he began driving on behalf of the fraud scheme.