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News India Times
July 17, 2015
– that’s all you need to know
Community
By Ela Dutt
Chicago investment
manager who engi-
neered a sophisticated
Ponzi scheme to rob
gullible friends and
family of millions to feed his
extravagant lifestyle was sen-
tenced to six years in prison July
2.
Neal Goyal, 34, of Chicago,
former managing member and
founder of Blue Horizon Asset
Management, LLC, and Caldera
Advisors, LLC, wept in court as
his relatives and friends looked
on scornfully listening to him
apologize for the massive fraud.
Goyal was also ordered to pay
more than $9.2 million in restitu-
tion by U.S. District Judge for the
Northern District of Illinois
Matthew F. Kennelly. Goyal, who
pleaded guilty in February to
one count of wire fraud, was
ordered to surrender to begin
serving his sentence on
September 17, a release from the
U.S. Attorney for the Northern
District of Illinois said.
Goyal tearfully apologized at
the sentencing hearing, Chicago
Tribune reported, as some of the
victims of his fraud scoffed when
he said “every dollar I spent that
was not my own, made m sick.”
Trusting family members,
including his parents both of
whom are physicians and
respected members of a tight-
knit Hindu community, were
robbed by Goyal, according to
the Tribune report. Several vic-
tims told the judge how the
young man gained their trust
and broke it. Some families lost
the money saved for college edu-
cation, others for retirement or
medical bills. Meanwhile, he
lived the high life, spending mil-
lions on luxury car leases and
vacations to Hawaii and Tahiti,
buying a $1.5 million home in an
expensive neighborhood, and
keeping his high-end Michigan
Avenue office that boasted views
of the Chicago River.
Goyal committed the fraud
from 2006 to 2014, by setting up
a fake trading shop on Michigan
Avenue in Chicago and fooling
relatives and friends into believ-
ing that his trading strategy
would bring huge paybacks way
above regular market returns. He
hid his scheme by using existing
investor money to repay
investors, and by creating and
distributing false account state-
ments.
A
Six Years Prison For Fund Manager Who Defrauded Family, Friends
By a StaffWriter
T
he Indian-American leader
of an international extor-
tion ring that stretched as
far as India, has been sentenced
to 14 and a half years in prison
for bilking unsuspecting victims
by posing as American law
enforcement officials.
Sahil Patel, 34, of Tatamy,
Pennsylvania, who led the U.S.
side of the international ploy,
pleaded guilty this January
before U.S. District Judge Alvin
Hellerstein, who imposed the
175 month sentence July 8. The
audacious scheme used “call
centers” in India to contact hun-
dreds of American tax payers,
threatening them with dire legal
action if they did not pay up for
fabricated infractions.
Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney
for the Southern District of New
York, under whose jurisdiction
the case fell, said Patel’s elabo-
rate scheme had bilked more
than a million dollars from hun-
dreds of unsuspecting victims,
each of them doling out a few
hundred for fear of being prose-
cuted.
Patel has to pay $1 million in
forfeiture for his role in organiz-
ing the U.S. side of the fraud that
took place from Dec. 2011 to
Dec. 18, 2013, the day he was
caught. Patel provided “Lead
sheets” of potential names
whom the Indian call centers
systematically called posing as
FBI or IRS officials and threaten-
ing them with financial penalties
and arrest for cooked-up crimes.
A large number of those
called were of Indian descent,
including this reporter. The FBI
sent out warnings nationwide
about the scam upon discover-
ing it.
Patel et al masked their iden-
tities by using anonymized
voice-over-Internet technology
to get numbers under fraudulent
names that appeared to be relat-
ed to U.S. law enforcement
agencies. They also used several
layers of wire transactions in
order to conceal the destination
and nature of the extorted pay-
ments, which totaled at least
$1.2 million dollars.
In addition to the prison sen-
tence, Patel was sentenced to
three years of supervised release.
Law enforcement agencies are
asking any more victims to
report the crime.
14 Year Jail Term For International Extortion Ring Leader
- TORONTO
A
n Indian, on the run
for over seven years
after his wife was
found murdered at the cou-
ple’s home in Canada, has
been arrested in San
Francisco, a media report said
on July 9.
Harinder Singh Cheema
fromMontreal, the largest
city in Canada’s Quebec
province, was arrested by
American authorities on
Wednesday, the Montreal
Gazette reported. Cheema
was one of Quebec’s 10 most
wanted people and had an
Interpol worldwide red notice
issued against him.
The body of Cheema’s wife,
Gurpreet Kaur, 29, was found
wrapped in bedsheets on a
balcony of the couple’s home
on Deguire Street in St-
Laurent area of Montreal on
Christmas Eve in 2007.
A police investigation
found that Cheema was seen
leaving the apartment on the
morning of December 24. He
dropped off his children —
only three weeks and 18
months old — at the home of
his wife’s best friend.
Police said Cheema fled to
Toronto, where he stayed
with his girlfriend before fly-
ing to Vancouver with a ticket
she bought for him. His
whereabouts were unknown
from there and a nationwide
warrant was issued for his
arrest in 2008.
Police said they learned
that Cheema could be in the
San Francisco area and had
been working with the
authorities concerned to have
him arrested. Cheema will
soon be extradited to Quebec,
according to police.
While Cheema is an Indian
national while his wife had
permanent Canadian citizen-
ship.
- IANS
Indian Murder Accused
Arrested In San Francisco
By Suman Guha Mazumder
I
ndian Americans in North
Brunswick, New Jersey, are
wary these days taking strolls
on neighborhood roads, or even
making a walking trip to a local
grocery, or so it seems.
Fear has gripped the commu-
nity after an elderly man, Rohit
Patel, was seriously injured in an
alleged bias attack July 1 in the
township.
Patel, 57, was found lying on
the road by a passing driver. He
sustained several stitches and
broken teeth. His family claims
he was targeted because he is
Indian. Patel was attacked in
broad daylight and in the back-
drop of the township’s recent
history of violence against com-
munity members, trepidation
prevails. According to communi-
ty elders, there have been as
many as five or six similar
attacks against Indian
Americans for no apparent rea-
son since the beginning of the
year.
Dipen Patel, the victim’s son,
described the attack as a hate
crime, according to news
reports.
After searching the area police
arrested one Nyle Kilgore and
charged him with the alleged
attack on Patel, according to
news reports. North Brunswick
police say there have been sever-
al bias attacks against Indian
Americans near Kilgore’s former
home at the Colony Oaks apart-
ments. Kilgore will face multiple
charges they said, but did not
specify if bias crime would be
among them, news reports said.
The story of agony for the
family and other Indian
American residents could have
ended there, but for the fact that
Kilgore was freed on $50,000 bail
bond much to the chagrin of the
Patel family. The family
expressed apprehension
because Kilgore posted bail and
got out.
Peter Kothari, a longtime
community activist from Edison,
N.J., told Desi Talk he believed
the attacks were a result of the
visibly better economic status of
Indian-Americans, which he
thought was resented by some
who may be eking out a living. “I
think sometime (sic) they feel
who are these outsiders here
from outside. It’s a kind of angry
and often unreasonable reaction
that happens in such a bad
economy,” Kothari said.
Community In North Brunswick Wary
After 6th Attack On Indian
