BOSTON – A New Jersey man has pleaded responsible in federal court docket in Springfield to his function in a conspiracy which resulted in a Massachusetts sufferer changing her checking account funds into gold, as a result of she was tricked into believing that her accounts had been compromised by purported drug traffickers.
Gaurang Contractor, 38, a citizen of India dwelling in Jersey Metropolis, N.J., pleaded responsible on March 27, 2023 to 1 rely of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. U.S. District Courtroom Decide Mark G. Mastroianni scheduled sentencing for Might 24, 2023. Contractor was beforehand arrested on state fees in August 2022 and later indicted by a federal grant jury in December 2022.
A person posing as an agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) who referred to himself as “Oscar White,” contacted a sufferer in early August 2022 and informed the sufferer that her financial institution accounts had been “compromised” by drug sellers. “Oscar White” directed the sufferer to transform her life financial savings to gold. “Oscar White” offered the sufferer with the title of a jewellery retailer in Hadley, Mass. the place the sufferer may buy gold. “Oscar White” then directed the sufferer to depart the gold in her unlocked automobile and promised to ship a “court docket officer” to choose up the gold for safekeeping by the DEA. The sufferer grew to become suspicious and contacted regulation enforcement.
On Aug. 8, 2022, Contractor, unaware that the sufferer had contacted regulation enforcement, drove from New Jersey to Hadley, Mass, and performed surveillance on the jewellery retailer. Unbeknownst to Contractor, a regulation enforcement officer, posing because the sufferer, entered the jewellery retailer and accomplished a sham transaction for 2 buckets value of gold. Contractor adopted the sufferer’s automobile containing faux gold to a close-by parking zone. Upon arriving on the assembly location within the parking zone, Contractor eliminated the 2 buckets he believed to include gold from the sufferer’s automobile and positioned them in his personal automotive. He was subsequently arrested.
The cost of conspiracy to commit wire fraud offers for a sentence of as much as 20 years in jail, three years of supervised launch and a high-quality of as much as a $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court docket decide primarily based upon the U.S. Sentencing Pointers and statutes which govern the willpower of a sentence in a legal case.
United States Lawyer Rachael S. Rollins; Joseph R. Bonavolonta, Particular Agent in Cost of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division; Northwestern District Lawyer David E. Sullivan; and Hadley Police Chief Michael A. Mason made the announcement immediately. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Danial Bennett and Kaitlin Brown of Rollins’ Worcester Department Workplace are prosecuting the case.