Singapore received a request from the Government of the United States of America (US) in September 2018 for the extradition of a 42-year-old Indian national, Hitesh Madhubhai Patel, who is alleged to be part of an Indian-based transnational criminal organisation and has been indicted there. Patel was extradited to the US on 18 April 2019.
Patel is alleged to have carried out a vast, sophisticated, and highly successful India-based telephone impersonation fraud and money laundering scheme from January 2012 to October 2016. Through this scheme, over 15,000 victims in the US were defrauded of at least US$230 million. 24 of Patel’s co-conspirators have already been sentenced in the US to imprisonment terms of up to 20 years, in what has been described as the first-ever large scale, multi-jurisdiction prosecution targeting the India call centre scam industry.
In consultation with the Attorney-General’s Chambers and pursuant to a Warrant of Apprehension issued by the State Courts of Singapore, officers from the Commercial Affairs Department of the Singapore Police Force had arrested Patel on 21 September 2018. The State Courts held that Patel was liable to be extradited to the US to stand trial for general conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy.
This case underscores Singapore’s commitment to working in close cooperation with our international counterparts in the context of transnational crime, so that enforcement agencies are able to effectively deal with persons operating across borders.
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
20 April 2019 @ 9:00 AM