A 23-year-old Indian man, Atharva Shailesh Sathawane, has been sentenced to 18 years in prison after he was found guilty of scamming elders in Florida. The sentence was announced in January but the case has now come to the attention of MAGA commentators as their anti-India sentiment becomes louder over incidents of visa abuse and other instances of fraud. “An Indian illegal brought in under Biden has just been sentenced to 18 YEARS in prison for stealing $15 MILLION from elderly victims. They keep telling us these people come for a better life. BS. In reality, they come to steal from grandma,” Right-wing commentator Nick Sortor wrote on X.
Who is Atharva Shailesh Sathawane? What crime did he commit?
The 23-year-old came to the US on a student visa but overstayed it and lost his legal status in the US. Sathawane became a courier in an international fraud scheme that targeted elderly victims who were convinced to liquidate their retirement accounts to obtain cash, goldor both. Sathawane then traveled to each victim and took the cash or gold and delivered it to his co-conspirators. The court documents said that some of the co-conspirators were operating from India. Sathawane mainly operated in Florida but he also traveled to Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Jersey, and New York as and when required. His personal contribution to the major racket was $6,615,484.66 in cash and gold.“Sathawane preyed on his victims’ trust and fear, convincing them to turn over their life savings in gold. Unfortunately, this is a growing trend. In Florida alone, victims lost more than 33 million dollars last year just to gold bar scams. This sentencing is just one step toward justice for the victims in this scheme and the FBI’s efforts to stop this from happening over and over again,” FBI Jacksonville special agent in charge Jason Carley said.
