A 48-year-old New York man has pleaded guilty to money laundering for facilitating and profiting from the fraudulent foreign robocall traffic into the US through his voice over internet protocol (VoIP) company.
From 1999 to 2020, the defendant was the owner and CEO of the US-based VoIP provider Global Voicecom Inc. (GVI). GVI facilitated telecommunications services, such as calling platforms, domestic direct inward dial (DID) and toll-free services, that allowed foreign phone traffic into the US. By 2016, GVI began facilitating such services for an India-based VoIP provider that used the GVI platform to route fraudulent robocalls into the US. These robocalls included calls from people, based in India, fraudulently impersonating the officials of US government agencies such as the IRS and the Social Security Administration. Several US consumers became the victims of the scams perpetrated through these robocalls.
Importantly, the defendant had become aware of the misuse of his company’s services for criminal activities by 2018. In fact, by May 2019, he was also aware that the payments that the India-based client made to GVI came from criminal proceeds. Still, the defendant conducted illicit financial transactions involving these criminal proceeds. The defendant will pay $216,700 in restitution to four robocall victims of the wire fraud scheme and additionally forfeit $176,000.
Source: US Department of Justice
