Kishan Rajeshkumar Patel is an Indian national residing in America on a student visa. On June 18, the United States Attorney’s Office, Western District of Texas, issued a press release announcing that the Indian student had been sentenced in a federal court in Austin to 63 months in prison for conspiracy to commit money laundering. The ruling was handed down by US District Judge Robert Pitman.

US Attorney Justin Simmons further accused Patel of taking advantage of his visa status in the country and participating in an international fraud scheme. He was originally arrested by the Granite Shoals Police Department on August 24, 2024, after he got his hands on a box believed to have contained $130,000 from a victim’s residence. He eventually came into federal custody on August 29 and pleaded guilty on March 18.

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Who is Kishan Rajeshkumar Patel? Why has he been sentenced to prison?

Court documents indicate that Patel is a 20-year-old student from Navsari, Gujarat. Officials also said that he was not alone in defrauding elderly Americans, naming Dhruv Rajeshbhai Mangukiya as a co-defendant in the case. Other unnamed individuals are also said to have been linked to the crime.

From July 2024 through August 2024, Patel is said to have extorted elderly victims for thousands of dollars in cash and gold. To facilitate the conspiratorial scheme, he used various online phishing methods and even impersonated US government officials. Keeping a certain percentage of what he got out of the frauds, he shared a portion with his co-conspirators. As per the latest update in the conspiracy investigation, a group of at least 25 people fell victim to Patel. Moreover, the Indian students in the US left them reeling for an estimated total loss of at least $2,694,156.

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Kishan Rajeshkumar Patel’s co-conspirator, Dhruv Rajeshbhai Mangukiya, who is a fellow Indian national, pleaded guilty on June 16. His sentence hearing is awaited.

Much like Patel’s imprisonment, Moinuddin Mohammed, a third Indian student in the country, was sentenced to an eight-year-prison sentence in February 2025 due to his connection to a similar scheme.

As part of a scheme to defraud senior victims of cash and gold, Mohammed served as a courier who picked up the illegal earnings. He, too, impersonated government officials to convince victims to hand over their savings, with total lost valued at nearly $6 million.