Five fraudsters scammed more than $1 million.
AB Wire
NEW YORK: The co-conspirator of a Pakistani American man who has already been sentenced, Sylvaine Gnahore, was sentenced today to 2 ½-to-7 ½ years in state prison for his involvement in the theft of more than $1 million in corporate, personal, and tax refund checks that were diverted to accounts controlled by the defendant and his co-defendants.
Gnahore pleaded guilty in New York State Supreme Court to Grand Larceny in the Second Degree, Identity Theft in the First Degree, Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument in the Second Degree, and Scheme to Defraud in the First Degree, last month.
Four co-defendants, including the Pakistani American, Arshid Sohail, have previously pleaded guilty and been sentenced to state prison for their roles in the scheme.
“Fake West African passports were just one of the ways in which this ring was able to open bank accounts in the names of identity theft victims,” said New York District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. in a statement. “Before their scheme unraveled, they managed to steal more than $1 million in personal, corporate, and tax refund checks.”
According to his guilty plea and documents filed in court, between September 2011 and January 2014, Gnahore and his separately convicted co-defendants—Sohail, 45, Lancine Conde, 48, Gerald Quarles, 38, and Donald Williams, 45—operated an identity theft and financial fraud scheme involving stolen personal information that was used to open multiple bank accounts in victims’ names without authorization.
To verify the fraudulent accounts, the defendants used fake West African passports, counterfeit records, falsified bills, and fabricated immigration documents. The defendants also opened accounts in names resembling those of legitimate, established New York companies in order to divert checks made payable to those businesses to the accounts controlled by the defendants.
Earlier, Sohail, a/k/a ‘Fofana Chrishnha Bourgoin’, of Bronx, NY, was convicted of Grand Larceny in the Second Degree, a class C felony, 1 count, and sentenced to 3 ½-to-7 years in state prison.