A Chicago man has been sentenced to two years in prison for running an immigration fraud ring in which he arranged hundreds of fake armed robberies so immigrants could use police reports to obtain legal visas.
According to CWBChicago, prosecutors said 29-year-old Parth Nayi was accused of organizing fake robberies at diners, convenience stores and gas stations in Chicago and suburbs from 2022 to 2024.
The scam featured immigrants claiming to be victims of armed robbery so they could apply for U visas by agreeing to cooperate with police in catching the alleged robbers. The U visa program was created under a 2000 congressional act to help police address crimes in immigrant communities who refused to participate in police investigations for fear of deportation.
However, the report said that Nay recruited illegal immigrants, “most of them from Latin and South America”, to pretend to be robbery victims so that they could apply for visa protection. Immigrants will pay Ney up to $10,000 as part of the program.
The plan is often orchestrated with the help of store employees, and the robbery is faked to avoid anyone actually getting hurt. But a fake robbery incident in 2023 resulted in one of the fake robbers accidentally shooting a store employee in the abdomen. The employee survived the shooting.
Prosecutors arrested Nay for 17 specific fake robberies he organized.
The suspect later pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit visa fraud, and last week U.S. District Judge Mary M. Rowland sentenced him to two years in federal prison and fined him $50,000. Five other people were also convicted in connection with the fake robbery visa fraud scheme.
Federal officials have launched similar investigations in Massachusetts, Kentucky, Ohio and Missouri.
Several of the immigrants are part of a large network of Patel families living in the United States, many of whom are illegal immigrants and have been linked to a range of criminal activities.
For example, investigators said in March that in one case, Rambhai Patel staged fake robberies at multiple locations in Massachusetts, in which employees of a business would participate in the fake armed robberies. The clerk would hand over the store’s money to the fake robber and then wait a few minutes before calling the police, giving the accomplice time to escape unscathed. The clerk then falsely claimed to be the victim of a violent crime and offered to become a witness to help solve the case.
A recent study by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) found that immigrants have submitted more than 416,000 applications, and although the program only allows 10,000 applications per year, most receive the program’s generous benefits directly, regardless of whether they actually helped police.
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