Washington: Four Indians, three of them Patels from Gujarat and one Pakistani have pleaded guilty to the charges for their role in a multi-million dollar scam in which people in the US were cheated by Ahmedabad-based call centres.

According to the US Department of Justice, Indian nationals Rajubhai Patel (32), Viraj Patel (33), Dilip Kumar Ambal Patel (53), and a Pakistani citizen Fahad Ali (25) admitted their role in the massive US call centre scam. The US District Court Judge David Hittner of the Southern District of Texas will now decide the sentence for all five defendants.

In his guilty plea, Rajubhai Patel said he operated as a runner and assisted a co-defendant in managing the activities of a crew of other runners, based primarily out of Illinois, who liquidated victim funds in various locales in the US for conspirators from India-based call centres. Viraj Patel, who involved in the scam between April and September 2013, prior to entering the US. At that time he was working and assisting in overseeing the operations of a call centre in India engaging in scam activity at the behest of a co-defendant, reported PTI.

Another accused Dilipkumar A Patel operated as a runner in and around Southern California, along with other co-defendants based in the region, while Pakistani national Fahad Ali worked as a member of a crew of runners operating in the Chicago, Illinois area, the Southern District of Texas and elsewhere throughout the country.

As many as 56 individuals and five India-based call centres have been charged for their roles in the fraud and money laundering scheme in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Texas on October 19, 2016, said the PTI report. Earlier, another Indian national Hardik Patel (31) had pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy before the same court on June 2. While in May, an Indian-American woman Nilam Parikh had pleaded guilty to her involvement in the US call centre scam.