PDEU student from Gujarat caught in US for cheating woman of $40k

AHMEDABAD: A student of one of the prestigious universities of Gujarat - Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Energy University (PDEU) - has been charged with cheating a 72-year-old woman in the US of $40,000 recently.
According to the US security agencies, within two months, six Gujaratis were charged with cheating by US police and courts for duping senior citizens using threat or temptation in gold fraud cases.The six arrested Gujaratis were identified as Parth Patel, Jainav Patel, Lignesh Patel, Rakesh Patel, Dhruv Patel and Shweta Patel who contacted elderly people posing as US agencies officers urging them to either convert their savings into gold assets or hand the money to them for "safekeeping".
These accused had allegedly convinced elderly persons to hand them their savings citing that they could land in trouble as their bank accounts had been used in illegal activities.
Of these six persons, Jainav Patel, 25, who is currently staying in Illinois in the US, was a student of PDEU and went to the US under the students' exchange programme. According to the PDEU website, he has been sent to Southern Illinois University, US.
According to the Ionia County Sheriff's Office, Jainav and another man Alonzo Waheed Jr, 27, of Marion, Illinois were caught on May 9 for cheating a woman from Easton township in Illinois. The two accused, Jainav and Alonzo, called up the 72-year-old posing as Federal Trade Commission (FTC) officers and scared her saying that her accounts had been compromised in an identity theft in another state.
They allegedly told her that her money was not safe in the banks and that they would be sending federal agents to her home to pick up the money she withdrew from her account and placed into a box, a total amount of over $40,000. She approached a relative who knew her about the scam after which cops were contacted. A team of the Ionia County Sheriff's Office caught the two when they went to receive cash from the elderly woman.
In his defence, Jainav told TOI, "My case is about to get dismissed, they (court) don't even have a police report yet. I had my court hearing yesterday and they postponed it. I am in this situation because of a misunderstanding and wrongful leading." On May 25, the accused were charged with conspiracy to commit false pretenses - $20,000 or more but less than $50,000 - according to the sheriff's office.