An Indian man who came to Canada on a student visa has been sentenced to prison in the U.S. for his involvement in a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme targeting seniors, American officials say. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Wisconsin said in a press release Wednesday that a federal judge sentenced 22-year-old Roshan Shah to 48 months in prison for conspiring to commit money laundering. “According to court records, Shah is a citizen of India who was attending college in Canada on a student visa. He entered the United States on a visitor visa to collect fraud proceeds,” the release read. “Co-conspirators in India called victims and convinced them that their identities had been used to commit crimes. The victims were led to believe they had to surrender cash or gold to a federal agent, impersonated by Shah, for safekeeping.” Officials did not specify the province in Canada where Shah was living or the post-secondary institution where he was a student. In total, Shah collected more than US$3.7 million from 15 victims across multiple U.S. states, according to officials. The release said he was arrested in the summer of 2025 while “attempting to collect what he believed to be fraud proceeds” in New Berlin, Wis. The release noted that the victims of the scheme were largely “elderly and vulnerable.” “This case highlights the danger faced by Americans from fraudsters both here and overseas,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin Brad Schimel in the release. “This conviction and sentence are the result of the intensive efforts of federal law enforcement working closely with the U.S. Attorney’s Office to combat the scourge of fraud targeting our seniors.” The case was investigated jointly by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations and the New Berlin Police Department.
