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"Purported Robberies Were Staged" to Support "Fraudulent Visa Applications"
A system for encouraging cooperation by crime victims was allegedly turned into a means of producing visa fraud.
From an FBI Affidavit in U.S. v. Patel:
In or around June 2023, the Boston [Violent Crimes Task Force] became aware of a series of armed robberies of commercial stores … in which all three stores were robbed at gunpoint by an individual. Based on video surveillance, witness statements, and patterns of behavior observed across the three robberies, agents believed that the robberies were connected, and that the perpetrator of each of the three robberies was likely the same person (the "Suspect").
As the FBI learned more about the robberies and learned of other robberies apparently involving the same Suspect, as well as other individuals believed to be involved in the planning and execution of the robberies, facts emerged that suggested that the SUBJECT PERSONS were involved in conduct other than purely commercial robberies. For example, toll records analysis showed that some purported victims of the supposed robberies were in contact with PATEL before the robberies. Also, investigation revealed that one of the individuals tasked with committing the robberies had traveled via airplane to commit a robbery in circumstances where the money likely to be obtained during the robbery could reasonably be expected to have been less than the cost of the travel to commit the robbery.
The FBI also learned about immigration-related activity of several store employees following their purported victimization during the robberies, as outlined below. As a result of these unusual factors, during the course of the investigation, the FBI began to suspect that the SUBJECT PERSONS and co-conspirators, both known and unknown, were engaged in a visa fraud scheme, rather than a series of Hobbs Act robberies.
As explained more fully below, there is now probable cause to believe that the purported robberies were staged for the purpose of supporting fraudulent visa applications….
I am aware that the U nonimmigration status (U visa) is available to victims of certain crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse and who have been helpful to law enforcement in the investigation or prosecution of criminal activity. Qualifying crime victims may apply for U visa status by submitting a United States Customs and Immigration Services ("USCIS") Form I-918 petition and the Form I-918 Supplement B ("Form 918-B"). I am aware that Form 918-B must be signed by an authorized official of a certifying law enforcement agency, confirming that the individual was a victim of a qualifying crime and has been or will be helpful in the investigation or prosecution of the case.
Extortion, false imprisonment, unlawful criminal restraint, and felonious assault are among the qualifying crimes for U visa status, and at least some of the purported victims of the robberies involved in this matter have submitted Forms 918-B to local police departments, claiming that the robbery in which they were involved qualifies as one of these crimes and requesting the local police to certify that they qualify as victims….
Since early 2023, CW-1 [Cooperating Witness-1] had participated in a scheme involving PATEL, SINGH, and others known and unknown to investigators, that involved setting up and carrying out staged robberies of pre-determined commercial businesses for the purpose of rendering employees present during the purported robberies to be "victims of a violent crime" such that they would be seemingly qualified to apply for U visa status. CW-1 identified PATEL in a photograph and confirmed that he is the person charged by this complaint.
In early 2023, PATEL hired CW-1 to do construction at PATEL's home in New York, which CW-1 did. Soon thereafter, PATEL told CW-1 that he had a job that would pay $1,500. PATEL explained to CW-1 that he would be going into stores to commit robberies and that the people inside the stores would be aware that they were going to be robbed. Furthermore, PATEL advised CW-1 that some of the people who acted as victims did not work at the store and traveled from out of state to take part in the staged robbery. CW-1 explained that those people posing as victims were doing so to "get papers" to allow them to stay in the country. PATEL told CW-1 that the victims would not call the police when CW-1 committed the robberies, but CW-1 later saw on the news that victims were in fact calling police after the robberies. At least initially, CW-1 had not expected the police to be called at all.
CW-1 said that each victim paid PATEL $10,000 to take part in the staged robberies for the purpose of receiving "papers." {CW-1 later clarified that by "papers" he meant green cards or visas.} PATEL knew the store owners and the store owners allowed their respective stores to be used for the staged robberies. CW-1 understood that the store owners were fully aware of the robberies. PATEL paid each owner $1,500 to $2,000 to use the store for a robbery.
CW-1 said that during most of the robberies, CW-1 communicated with PATEL via a Bluetooth headset. During the staged robberies, PATEL would be in contact with the target store's owner or an employee who would notify PATEL when the store was empty. PATEL would in turn instruct CW-1 to go inside to "commit" the robbery….
On November 15, 2023, at approximately 12:50 p.m., CW-1 and an FBI Undercover Employee (hereinafter "UCE") conducted a consensually recorded telephone conversation with PATEL via the WhatsApp account linked to the PATEL PHONE. Prior to the call, CW-1 told PATEL that the UCE was someone he knew who might be interested in helping with the scheme. The following are excerpts in which PATEL explained what the UCE's role may be:
PATEL: Just you will go inside, I will let you know what time you need to go, like, like, give exact times, and stuff like that, so it's no one inside in the store, the store is empty, there's a guy, like two guys inside, just so, and like hands up, give me money, and just you know come back from that, nothing else.
UCE: You say I say that to a guy, are these guys like your people? Like you know these people?
PATEL: Uh, I know that peoples, but you know the customers, whenever the customer doesn't have in the store, that time you can go inside
…..
UCE: Ok, now now how does it go down? Do I got to hop the counter, do I need to pull the gun out, what do you need me to do?
PATEL: Just show the gun, that's it, just [unintelligible] hands up, just you know, just take it up from the register, the money, and just give it to me, that's it.
…..
UCE: So you sure they don't call the police, man? This shit sound a little too good to be true, man. You know what I mean, like, are you sure?
PATEL: Yeah, he can call like after fifteen minutes, don't worry.
UCE: And, and what about for, like how I look and shit, they're not going to tell how I look or nothing close to how I look, how does that work?
PATEL: No, they, they, they doesn't tell, don't worry….
During the course of the investigation, investigators have identified [eight] robberies [in six months in 2023], occurring throughout the eastern United States [from Tennessee to Massachusetts], for which there is probable cause to believe PATEL and his associates, including CW-1 and SINGH, staged the robberies in furtherance of a visa fraud scheme ….
With respect to the robberies in the chart and U visas, in seven of the eight robberies, law firms representing purported victim(s) submitted U visa Form 918-B to the relevant local police department, requesting certification…. Further, the PATEL PHONE was in contact with a telephone number that record checks indicated was associated with [one of the] attorney[s].
A good reminder that any system that provides benefits, however well-intentioned, is likely to exploited by people who aren't entitled to the benefits. I first focused on that in depth with regard to the Google deindexing system, which I wrote up in my Shenanigans (Internet Takedown Edition), but as the title suggests, there are such shenanigans in many other contexts as well. People who have studied regimes that give religious objectors exemptions from generally applicable laws or job rules have long been concerned about such fraudulent claims; Justice Brennan largely dismissed this worry in his seminal Sherbert v. Verner (1963) opinion, but I think it's a more serious concern than that opinion suggests.
Of course, this doesn't mean that the benefits programs should be rejected simply because of the risk of fraud. Insurance, for instance, provides ample opportunities and incentives for fraud—and even for murder—and yet we recognize that its benefits outweigh the risks, so that we should maintain the system while investing resources into finding and deterring the fraud. Nonetheless, whenever a system is being designed or evaluated, the risk of cheating has to be seriously considered.
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I wrote about the problem the Left has with people cheating in their programs here:
https://dilanesper.substack.com/p/the-left-has-a-problem-with-cheaters
And here’s a part of my Twitter thread on 303 Creative where I discuss lies in religious freedom cases:
https://twitter.com/dilanesper/status/1599144081112051712
Why specifically the Left?
Religious freedom cases would be a larger problem for the Right. But the Left has a solution to most of its cheating problems: additional government to catch the cheaters; it’s not clear how the Right could do that with religious freedom cheaters, and of course they are opposed to expanding government anyway. But the free market also requires a lot of policing to keep it workable, like the SEC. The Right prefers to reduce IRS staffing that would catch rich tax cheats to “save money” but the savings will be less than the lost revenue. Of your examples, many are more taken advantage of by the rich, who are more likely right leaning (#5 and #6 explicitly; rich people more likely to be at Dartmouth or on airplanes, I would guess, or at least the non-rich at Dartmouth would probably be more vulnerable to sanctions if caught cheating, such as losing scholarships or the substantial investment made to send them there).
The Left does have to struggle with this for some of the benefits it proposes, in that it does not want to stigmatize those taking them (e.g., support animals, trans people, people with disabilities).
I think the reality that I perhaps didn’t state in those earlier pieces is a lot of the people on the Left and Right secretly like the cheaters. E.g., what Lefties would like to do is eliminate standardized tests altogether, have universal basic income, etc., so folks who fake mental illness to get extra time or commit welfare fraud are in some incohate sense furthering their real policy goals. Similarly, an open borders lefty might secretly or not so secretly favor the immigration fraud discussed in OP because it lets more people into the country. (That’s not, of course, actually true; cheaters are thwarting the Lefty policy goals. But I think many lefties think like that.)
Similarly, on the Right, there’s clearly, for instance, lots of social conservatives who liked the old status quo on gay issues and would love to undermine anti-discrimination protections for gay people. So if folks in these cases are perjuring and faking their religious beliefs, it doesn’t really matter because it furthers the cause of poking a bunch of loopholes in gay rights protections.
So that’s at least part of what is going on and why people don’t crack down on the cheaters.
Since you’re clearly not of the Left, your guesses as to what Lefties think or secretly like or would like to do can only be swallowed with a poisonous dose of salt. Since I’m not of the Right, I won’t try to guess the motivations for claimed religious beliefs, which might be a sincere desire for theocracy or just a cover for bigotry.
If you have the chance to edit your substack piece, maybe you could expand “the other poeple” in #6 to include George Santos, Anna Paulina Luna and various other Right fakes and liars?
Nobody likes cheats, except maybe Trump voters, who voted for a notorious one. It’s more important to get welfare to the people who need it, and to make more of it available to more people, than to place increasingly onerous obstacles and burdens and restrictions in their way in the name of preventing fraud and catching fraudsters, both important goals, to be sure, but not to the extent where every welfare recipient is treated like a criminal.
You don’t have clue how ‘lefties’ think.
1. I am on the Left.
2. I do know a lot about how Lefties view this sort of thing, because I’ve heard them express Robin Hood-style sentiments about cheaters in programs.
Having seen your (very often thoughtful and interesting) posts here, over many many years; I would not have identified you as coming from the Left. I also would not have id’d you as a loony far-right wacko either. Maybe what you post here at the VC is not representative of your overall world-view(s) and/or your political preferences. But since all we have to base our guess on, of course, is what we see from you here . . . I’d have guessed: More conservative than liberal. So, I gather that you think I also would have been wrong in where I’d have pegged you.
.
I feel like I’ve been saying this too much lately, but…
You cannot be serious.
Esper has been around the Volokh conspiracy for a long time. Since the original blog was hosted on Volokh.com. He is indeed a man of the left.
I liked your Substack post and thought it was insightful.
I probably find this more amusing than I should.
You are a rarity as a good faith leftist. Your breed is so much a rarity at this blog that the “any fallacy to win an argument” crowd immediately identifies you as the enemy due to your attempt at a reasoned approach.
Leftist #1: “I’m from the left, and I disagree.”
Leftist #2: “You’re a conservative.”
Impossible to believe. You linked to the Daily Mail; that alone will get you eye-rolled out of the Left. You express more concern over transgender people victimizing others in prison than the much greater problem of their victimization and prison rape in general (male guards at women’s prisons are much more numerous than transwomen of any sort). You barely make a nod to the much greater problems on the Right. You’re Left like “even the liberal New Republic” is liberal.
I would commend you for having talked to all Lefties everywhere in this country. But instead you do the usual right wing thing of searching out the leftist extreme and pretending it’s representative, while ignoring the broad streak of destructiveness that composes so much of the Right in this country, whom you can find in the Republican leadership of the House.
Just on prison rape alone, i have written articles about it. Not transgender prison rape- ordinary prison rape. I have done twitter threads on it. I have talked about it here. I have a longstanding record of saying the treatment of our prisoners is horrible.
So no, you are completely full of it about me. It happens that a number of male sex offenders- who by the way, are not actually trans by any but the stupidest definition- have purported to transition and then committed assaults or entered into relationships in women’s prisons. Some have even shamelessly detransitioned after release. This is well documented and you are being a complete ignorant douchebag in implying that I care about this issue because of transphobia.
That substack article branched out into a new area of right wing crap for you, then; congratulations on widening your scope. Maybe you’ll get invited onto some right wing podcasts. You’ve posted a link to it twice here, but I don’t recall links to these other articles (and Twitter threads are completely useless nowadays). It’s not the left with the biggest problem, but fine, keep on pretending you’re a contrarian leftie and you can fit right in here.
You ignore a vast problem of prison rape in favor of “a number” of male offenders that has to be pretty small, and probably requires segregating partially transitioned individuals in prisons; problem solved. Abuses by prisoners of the same sex and by guards? Not so simple to solve, and it’s not the left that wants vast numbers of people in prisons, especially private for-profit prisons.
And sure, untrained or exotic “service” animals on airplanes are a nuisance, although it may be that for some of those pet owners it’s because it’s unsafe to transport a pet as airplane cargo. Boo hoo, those pesky lefties, not solving first world problems fast enough for you.
1. Here is me writing about prison rape. Not trans prison rape. Prison rape. Saying it is a huge problem and that it is a lasting shame on our society. You are making definitive comments about a person you don’t know and out of total ignorance. Congratulations.
https://dilanesper.substack.com/p/prison-rape-can-and-must-be-stopped
So no, I care about the issue of sex offenders transitioning their way into women’s prisons out of a longstanding concern with sexual assault in prisons. Nice try.
And yes, I agree it’s possible to segregate the prisoners and protect the trans inmates. And we absolutely should do that. But in many states and some foreign jurisdictions, that hasn’t been happening the way it should, which is why we’ve seen a number of reports of sexual assault plus some inmate pregnancies.
2. It isn’t “unsafe” to transport a pet as airplane cargo. Indeed, people who transport their pets to dog shows and breeders who sell pets nationally do it all the time. It’s expensive and requires a lot of certifications, which is proper because we are talking about very valuable animals and we don’t want to abuse them.
At any rate, you just proved my point. You don’t like the regulations prohibiting pet transport and are fine with people lying to get around them. Which is… exactly what I said in the OP that made you so mad.
You may have heard that, but it’s not because they like cheaters it’s because they dislike how difficult people like to make life for people on welfare. Everybody roots for David vs Goliath.
If youre on the left you support people getting access to welfar when they need it without having to go through seven layers of beureaucratic surveillance hell.
The problem is, as I point out, you end up with no welfare programs if you don’t police the fraud.
Nobody said not to police the fraud. You end up with a dysfunctional welfare system if you’re spending more on policing than the fraud actually costs.
The U visa provides eligible victims with nonimmigrant status in order to temporarily remain in the United States (U.S.) while assisting law enforcement. If certain conditions are met, an individual with U nonimmigrant status may adjust to lawful permanent resident status. Congress capped the number of
available U visas to 10,000 per fiscal year.
https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/privacy/dhs_u_visa_law_enforcement_certification_guide.pdf
Those who cross the border illegally should never, ever, be eligible for anything but deportation.
So I guess your username means “Longformebutnototherpeopletobefree.”
Of course fraud is considered. Make a system and someone will try to defraud it. Fraud can only be minimized, caught, and punished, and this tale has all three. The only thing it doesn’t have is any reason to start panicking about fraud in social programs/immigration policy unless your entire goal is to eliminate social programs/immigration policy. And then it’s less “panic” and more “opportunity.”
This scheme is fairly brilliant but also likely very unique. They likely got greedy. Also, hiring otherwise uninvolved people to commit the robberies was dumb. And it is fascinating how simple robberies were solved into a pretty complex conspiracy. Law enforcement is bad ass when it wants to be. Ask any “J6’er.”
Actually no — I suspect that some disinterested (and not involved) community activist made an issue about all of the Indian-owned stores being robbed.
The FBI makes reference to the Hobbes Act — that’s interstate robberies and if they truly had a gang robbing Indian immigrant-owned stores on an interstate basis, the FBI would be considered exceedingly negligent (and racist) for not acting.
Kinda like the Black Frat at Amherst College, they probably didn’t realize that the FBI would take hate crimes seriously — and attempt to identify the perps.
.
(a) Whoever in any way or degree obstructs, delays, or affects commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce, by robbery or extortion or attempts or conspires so to do, or commits or threatens physical violence to any person or property in furtherance of a plan or purpose to do anything in violation of this section shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
(b) As used in this section—
(1) The term “robbery” means the unlawful taking or obtaining of personal property from the person or in the presence of another, against his will, by means of actual or threatened force, or violence, or fear of injury, immediate or future, to his person or property, or property in his custody or possession, or the person or property of a relative or member of his family or of anyone in his company at the time of the taking or obtaining.
As the text you quoted indicates, the Hobbs Act certainly includes interstate robberies, but it is by no means limited to them.
Are you actively retarded or just deflecting? The relevant context here is about robberies and you’re disagreeing just to disagree.
I’m disagreeing because Dr. Ed’s speculation was, as usually, based on a mistake. Hobbs Act robberies rarely involve what a layperson would consider an interstate component: indeed, under current precedent it’s hard to imagine any robbery (certainly any business robbery) that couldn’t be charged under the Hobbs Act.
“The Hobbs Act makes it a federal crime to commit, attempt to commit, or conspire to commit a robbery with an interstate component. § 1951(a).” US v. Taylor, 142 S. Ct. 2015 (2022).
The “interstate component,” like all aspects of modern commerce clause jurisprudence, simply means that the robbery affects interstate commerce. Since growing marijuana for one’s own personal medicinal use on one’s own property is included within that, it really doesn’t have anything to do with “interstate robberies,” as Dr. Ed mistakenly claimed.
Does your store sell any products that have ever moved in interstate commerce? If so, then robbing it affects interstate commerce and falls within the Hobbs Act.
A weapon manufactured in another state is sufficient.
Well no, that would be one of the few hooks that wouldn’t work.
(Under current Supreme Court precedent, a law that worked that way would almost certainly be constitutional. But that isn’t what the Hobbs Act says.)
“law firms representing purported victim(s) submitted U visa Form 918-B to the relevant local police department, requesting certification”
Tell me that said law firms didn’t know what was going on…
And what is the liability to them?
That paragraph of the affidavit is confusing. It opens with “law firms”, meaning more than one. It closes with “a telephone number that record checks indicated was associated with that attorney.” One attorney.
If there are 10,000 visas available nationwide there could be hundreds of that form filed in Massachusetts. Seeing a few is not too suspicious.
As for liability, in theory a federal felony leading to mandatory disbarment. In practice, prosecutors can’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt without a better cooperating witness than they have. I assume the lawyers, if they are complicit, know not to incriminate themselves in permanent records.
Is not incriminating oneself in permanent records an elective or a required course in law school?
I’m going to guess it’s part of CLE. I was at a corporate training session where a lawyer taught us not to incriminate ourselves in permanent records. I gathered he learned about it on the job.
Does the CLE just consist of watching the famous scene from The Wire?
John Carr postulates:
As a lawyer, I’d like to think that too.
But I struggle to explain John Eastman. Must have been some pretty tasty Kool Aid* he was drinking.
*yes yes, I know it was actually Flavor Aid at Jonestown, but roll with the vernacular.
If you struggle to explain John Eastman, how do you make of the Volokh Conspirators’ enthusiastic endorsements of Mr. Eastman, followed by their conspicuous and cowardly silence when events revealed Mr. Eastman to be a disgraceful, un-American jackass?
“People who have studied regimes that give religious objectors exemptions from generally applicable laws or job rules have long been concerned about such fraudulent claims”
I saw somebody looking at a web page to buy “Obamacare” coverage. Red flag. Without saying so up front it was pushing people to join a health care sharing ministry. That’s an Affordable Care Act alternative to traditional health insurance. It was meant for members of religious groups to pool their resources instead of buying insurance. So a form of exemption. She is not religious. They wanted her anyway. The government can’t question religious beliefs too closely and may not even try.
Some states have banned similar Obamacare promotions as deceptive business practices. The company running this site turned out to be legal in Massachusetts.
I’m a bit confused by this comment.
Health Care Sharing Ministries aren’t health care insurance. They don’t qualify for any type of subsidies like many Obamacare plans do.
It’s basically just a cost-sharing arrangement by a group of people. Sometimes they share religious beliefs. Sometimes they share ethical beliefs.
You could start one right now if you wanted. A HCSM where you and your closest 10 friends agree to share health care costs.
Putting it into focus, you could join “JohnnyCare” a health care sharing ministry set up by John Oliver, based on his particular ethical beliefs.
But if you sell it as Obamacare or just health insurance, properly run state regulatory agencies should shut you down.
Under the fashionable new laws to evade Bruen it would be illegal to carry a gun into a store for the purpose of a pretend robbery unless there was a sign welcoming guns. If the gun was real. The arrest warrant does not mention any federal gun crimes. The subjects of the warrant are residents of New York and probably do not have a Massachusetts license to carry. But prosecuting a gun crime in Massachusetts requires proof that the gun worked, not a video showing a gun-shaped object.
Alternate headline: Purported Asylum Claims Were Staged.
Because of trauma from a faked robbery in the US.
But isn’t this just a variation on long behaviors, just with a different reward, asylum vs. cash? As in, “Did you know that, if you curled up into a ball, you could get 5, 6, more figures out of it (of which I get 1/3)? We even have experts to lead you in quivvering like a scared lamb while in that ball.”
The faked robbery is easy to detect, in theory. The rest, not so much.
the soon-to-be-ex
law prof tosses more red meat
to his right-wing rubes
the strange fixations
of disaffected losers —
carry on, clingers
Props for placing your tired shtick in haiku form, at least.
Which are more tiresome — (1) Prof. Volokh’s predictable latherings of his bigoted fans and this blog’s habitual publication of vile racial slurs or (2) my responses to that substandard conduct?
The answer likely hinges on whether your preferences have a chance to prevail at the modern American marketplace of ideas and become part of America’s established trajectory of improvement. In other words, are you a disaffected culture war loser?
Consider the possibility that while I might philosophically agree with you in the broad brush strokes, your shtick is still&also old and tired.
Seriously, what’s driving you to cut’n’paste the same boring posts at this point? Did the VC touch you inappropriately as a child or something?
At least attempt to get thoughtful and creative and funny if you want to accomplish something. Otherwise you’re boring, and that’s a worse sin than [insert political preference here].
Why do sports broadcasters — including Hall of Fame play-by-play announcers — provide the score every minute or two, sometimes hundreds of times during the presentation of a single game, even if the score changes rarely?
Because they’re paid to. What’s your excuse?
Some people might read the names of mainstream, strong educational institutions that these law professors prominently and repeatedly associate with their blog and therefore mistake the Volokh Conspiracy for a serious, legitimate legal blog. Even first-time visitors to this blog deserve to know that it is a flaming shitstorm of bigotry, shoddy scholarship, partisan polemics, and more right-wing bigotry.