
An Indian man scammed the US government of millions of dollars for years. However, his stint and greed to keep pushing for more eventually landed him in jail.
Monishkumar Shah ran a jewelry business in New York and was caught evading customs duties on $13.5 million worth of jewelry. He was also found to have laundered $10.3 million in illegal transactions by the authorities.
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From 2019 to 2022, Shah shipped jewellery from India and Turkey but since the customs duty was higher for these countries he found a trick to bypass it. He shipped the jewels to South Korea, changed the label, and avoided paying a 5.5% tax on imports.
The Indian jeweler made customers create fake invoices and misled the US Customs to cover his tracks. He even used his New York businesses to process millions in illegal money transfers, moving large sums of cash.
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After running the racket for 3 years, Shah was finally caught and has recently been found guilty by the US court. He will now face 30 months in prison in addition to paying $742,500 to the government and forfeiting over $11 million in ill-gotten profits.