AHMEDABAD: FBI‘s hunt for an international scammer posing as Al Capone led them not to Chicago, but to a 24-year-old courier from Gandhinagar, Gujarat living in Georgia. The agents arrested Shreyas Chaudhary, who was using the name of the mobster who ruled Chicago’s underworld from 1925 to 1931, for allegedly scamming elderly US citizens out of a staggering $4.8 million.
The investigation also resulted in arrest of another surprising figure: 24-year-old Trusha Chaudhary from Gandhinagar, Shreyas’s partner-in-crime, who lived with him in Georgia. FBI officers reported that she was responsible for receiving the stolen funds and that they discovered at least 14 fake IDs in her possession.
A key player in a gang targeting senior citizens, Shreyas was caught in late Sept after he conned a 77-year-old man from Salem in Massachusetts out of $61,000. As per FBI officers, the gang’s modus operandi involved sending pop-up ads claiming the victims’ computers were hacked.
Shreyas and his accomplices would then approach the victims, posing as officials from a major tech company or US govt and convince the victims to convert their savings into gold or cash, which the gang would collect. They targeted people in Ohio, California, New York, and Maryland.