Indian online fraudster gets 42 months in prison

An Indian national, who cheated unsuspecting women he met on Internet dating sites and fleeced them of thousands of dollars, has been sentenced to 42 months in prison by a US court.

27-year-old Jaitass Dhanoa preyed on three women of Indian descent, lying to them about his name, citizenship, and employment and convinced them of his love before using their credit cards for the fraud, the Justice Department said.

He also used his name as Jay D. Singh and Jay Singh.

Sentencing him for 42 months, a US District Court Judge in Philadelphia ordered him to pay a USD 1,000 fine and a 1,500 special assessment.

Dhanoa used social networking sites like match.com and indiandating.com for picking up his potential victims.

He was charged with and pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated identity theft, three counts of unauthorised use of an access device, eight counts of bank fraud, and one count of false representation of United States citizenship.

He entered the guilty plea in January this year.

Beginning in October 2007, Dhanoa used social networking sites, like www.indiandating.com [1] and www.match.com [2], to meet young women.

The accused, in an effort to seduce these women, lied about his name, his background, his citizenship, his employment, and his intentions, the Justice Department said.

Dhanoa told his victims that he was a US citizen working for Deutche Bank and International Monetary Fund.

To further solidify this ruse, Dhanoa allegedly created fake Deutsch Bank email accounts and a fake American passport.

After gaining his victims' trust, Dhanoa stole their credit cards which he then used without authorisation, and/or stole their identities which he then used to fraudulently obtain credit cards.

The three victims, who were each led to believe they were Dhanoa's sole romantic interest, only found out about his scheme when they were contacted by credit card companies investigating suspicious activities, the Department said.

Since Dhanoa did not had any known prior criminal history, and accepted responsibility for his actions immediately after his arrest, the Justice Department recommended him in favour of a lower sentence.

The Department said Dhanoa carried out his scheme while dating at least three of his victims at the same time.

The defendant's crimes are extremely serious, and merit and equally serious sentence, the federal investigators recommended.