A New Jersey man has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison for his role in a $200 million scam that saw crooks fabricate thousands of false identities to obtain credit cards.
Having already pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to commit bank fraud charge, Babar Qureshi was sentenced to 46 months prison time and five years of supervised release.
According to prosecutors, Qureshi and his fellow crooks made up false identities by creating fraudulent ID documents and credit profiles with major credit bureaus. The gang would then pump up the credit of the identities by providing false information about their creditworthiness before running up large loans.
The gang are thought to have made up some 7000 false identities, getting tens of thousands of credit cards and building a network of more than 1800 'drop addresses'.
Qureshi’s specific role was to take the phony cards and charge large amounts at complicit merchants, who would then pay him a portion of the charge. He used phony bank accounts to conceal his involvement and receive proceeds from the fraud, which he used for personal expenses, including his mortgage.