Feds: $1.6 million scammed from older Americans was sent to three men in Colorado

Three residents of a small Colorado town received federal prison sentences recently for their roles in a foreign operation that stole $1.6 million from dozens of American citizens. 

The three men were "runners" who picked up packages of cash that came to various Colorado locations from across the country. The packages were sent by victims scammed by unidentified callers from India who misrepresented themselves as federal agents.

In one instance, a Rhode Island resident was told by the scammers that his Social Security number had been used to rent a vehicle which was stopped during a narcotics trafficking bust in Texas. 

A 63-year-old in Illinois was told that he was the victim of identity theft and would need to have money held in trust while a new identity was issued. He sent in more than $65,000.

An 86-year-old Missouri resident was told that her vehicle had been found abandoned in Texas with her identity documents inside. She sent money to the scammers for six months, according to case documents. 

Another person who spoke to CBS News Colorado lost almost a quarter of a million dollars alone.  

Approximately $1.6 million came into Colorado from 57 Americans who were victimized by the scheme. 

Federal investigators estimated a total of $7.5 million total was lost nationally, sent to other operatives in other parts of the country by other victims. The number of victims nationally was not disclosed in the documents of the Colorado men's prosecution. 

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The demanding calls were placed by individuals pretending to be agents of the Social Security Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security or the Drug Enforcement Administration, according to case documents. The callers aggressively claimed the older citizens' identities had been stolen by criminals who then committed crimes using the victim's names. This, the victims were urgently told, made them responsible for the crimes and put their citizenship - and their bank accounts - at risk. 

The older Americans were convinced to remove their money from their accounts and send it to the fake federal agents for its alleged protection.  

Federal investigators determined those scam calls originated in India but have been unable to precisely pinpoint the source.

The last of the three Colorado "runners," an Indian national who spearheaded the local effort, was sentenced last month to 10 years behind bars. 

Eighty-five-year-old Carol Jean Burkhardt of St. Charles, Missouri, was one of those deceived. In 2021, she nervously sat in her car at her bank's drive-thru, holding her phone, ready to withdraw another large sum on money at the urging of an persistent fraudster.

Her bank teller hesitated. 

A bank manager was called to the teller's window. 

"Pull out of here and I'll meet you out front," Burkhardt recalled the bank manager telling her. 

The scammer overheard and told her, "Don't let him see your phone."

When the bank officer approached her, Burkhardt put her finger to her mouth to indicate the scammer was on the phone and listening.

"Let me talk to him," the bank officer said.

"They want me to go inside," she told the scammer.

"They can't keep you from getting your money," the scammer replied.

Burkhardt entered the bank despite the scammer saying the made-up criminals who had stolen her identity were about to hunt her down.   

"I almost just collapsed....sitting there in front of that picture window. I thought (the criminals) might drive by and shoot me through the window. It was traumatic," she recalled.

Burkhardt's bank fortunately refused to hand over more of her money. Instead, the police were called. 

When they arrived, Burkhardt was still so upset and conflicted, she told police she hoped the bank manager would lose his job for not allowing her withdrawal. 

"But they were trying to protect me. At the time, I just couldn't see it," she said. 

Sadly, Burkhardt had already sent the fraudsters more than $16,000. 

"It had to be cash, it had to go to a certain store. They would tell me how to pack the package," she said. She was instructed to wrap the money in plastic and aluminum foil, then put it in a box inside another box. "I would do that, but every place I had to send the money to was to different addresses to different people."

Burkhardt regrets losing the funds, but not as much as she regrets looking gullible in the eyes of her late husband.

"I couldn't believe I was following their instructions. When I realized what I was doing, I just felt like I was giving away our hard-earned money," she bemoaned. "I was foolish enough to do it. I thought I was smarter, but they were a step ahead of me. They're so convincing of everything they tell you. I just can't explain it.

"I don't think I'll recoup any of the money and I'm trying to put it behind me." 

Federal documents indicate the illegal activity began in January 2020. Dhruv Jani, a 40-year-old Indian national, worked at that time at a convenience store in Wray, a small plains town of barely 2,300 residents that is located near Colorado's border with Kansas and Nebraska. Jani, per case documents, managed the local part of the fraud operation and hired two other Wray residents to help him - James Albert Witte and Jason Lee Henderson. 

Both Witte and Henderson were struggling to establish themselves financially. Witte, then 68, had recently closed a restaurant business, according to case documents. Henderson, 36 at the time, was recently from jail and did not have a valid driver's license.

For the next 15 months, the men used the fake identities - purchased from an online retailer by an unidentified source in India, per prosecutors - to retrieve packages containing thousands of dollars. They collected money and held it for delivery to other people higher in the criminal organization, according to federal documents. The packages were addressed to "Dennis Lake," Andrew Pwesei," "John Robinson," "Mark Payton," "Nick Burns," and other contrived names. They were sent to Walgreen's stores in Wray, Fort Morgan, Sterling, Greeley, Loveland, Fort Collins and Littleton, and Walmart stores in Centennial and Aurora. 

Each package typically contained tens of thousands of dollar, per case documents.

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Once with their hands on the money, the men would record themselves on cell phone video opening the packages in their vehicles. Jani would then send the videos in to his superiors in the organization as a means of documentation. They referred to the recordings as "count videos."

Those videos would also serve as documentation for federal prosecutors. 

In one such video, the men opened their largest haul in an Aurora hotel room. It was addressed to a fake name - "Christine Minor" - and addressed to a Walgreen's store on East Colfax Avenue. 

In that video, Jani is heard saying "$230,000 complete" after the men counted it. 

That money came from Dean Zieger of California.

"They convince you that you are setting up a federally protected digital locker (for your money). They tell you your IP has been compromised, people are coming after you, and you need to close accounts and put them in a federally protected locker," Zieger told CBS News Colorado. 

The impersonators told Zieger he was in danger - first, of being held responsible for federal drug crimes committed by those individuals who were using his identity, and second, of being tracked down and physically harmed by those criminals. 

"They won't let you off the phone. They say it's for your protection, there may be people coming after you. You have to immediately go to a DEA office and meeting with social security agents."

Believing his fortune was a stake, Zieger, a 56-year-old Orange County resident, sent money. Then he began fleeing for his safety, driving to northern California. 

"They had me on the phone. They wanted me 'live' as a safety, in case somebody gets me," Zieger said.

As he approached Sacramento, Zieger called ahead to an actual DEA office. An authentic agent answered, suggested Zieger was being scammed, and attempted to stop delivery of the package Zieger had already dropped off. Zieger learned he was 20 minutes too late - the $230,000 was already on its way to Colorado. 

Zieger understandably thought the threat was real because he had researched the first phone call from the fraudsters. The number matched the government's online sources and appeared to come directly from the Social Security Administration. 

"They used technology to convince you who they were. They said, 'You can call these sites to confirm who we are.' You're seeing numbers that were on the federal websites," Zieger said. 

"I called SSA after it happened. One of the senior directors called me back. He was extremely concerned they could clone these numbers. ... They were very concerned that breaches were occurring using their phone system and people were misrepresenting them."

More than a year later, Zieger is still dealing with the traumatic experience.

"I wasn't able to stop it," he said. As a result, "I dont' trust anybody who calls me."

CBS News Colorado contacted the Social Security Administrator about the breach of its phone system. The agency declined to comment beyond its statement issued after Jani's sentencing.

"This sentence holds Mr. Jani accountable for his malicious acts of orchestrating Social Security-related and government imposter scams that preyed upon vulnerable persons," stated Gail S. Ennis, Inspector General for the Social Security Administration, in a U.S. Department of Justice press release. "My office will continue to work closely with our law enforcement partners to pursue those who victimize unsuspecting persons, often elderly, to deprive of them of their Social Security benefits and resources.

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The operation unraveled in November 2020 when a UPS shipping clerk in Sterling became suspicious of Witte. She refused to give him a package sent from Washington state to a fictitious name. The clerk called police and Sterling Police Department officers pulled Witte's car over. Witte admitted to the fraud, identified Jani, and allowed investigators access to his phone where several of the money-counting videos were stored.

Eventually, federal investigators matched text messages between Witte, Jani and Henderson to surveillance videos in the stores where they picked up the packages.

Witte also told investigators that he and Jani once delivered a backpack of the victims' cash to a jewelry store in Los Angeles. In addition, he said a man of apparent Indian nationality came to Witte's home in Wray and counted "ten stacks of bundled money" with Jani on the home's screened-in porch. That man left with it in a backpack.

Days later, with authorities closing in, Jani fled to New Dehli, India.

He was taken into custody by U.S. Marshals and U.S. Customs personnel in July 2022, a year and a half later, at Seattle's airport. A federal grand jury had reached an indictment against Jani less than a week earlier. The documents of the case do not indicate whether Jani turned himself in or was detained with the help of foreign authorities. 

Jani was sentenced in Denver on September 21 to 10 years in federal prison. The judge also ordered him to pay $1,163,947.28. Prosecutors dropped six charges in exchange for Jani's guilty plea on a single count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Among the charges dropped was one pertaining to a threat he made by phone to kill his estranged wife in Colorado using "his own hands." Case documents show Jani lived with the woman in Wray. The couple had applied for Jani's permanent U.S. residency in May 2021, seven months after he left the country. 

Jani made the threat after the woman filed for divorce and withdrew her support for his green card, the U.S. Attorney Office for the District of Colorado stated in a press release. 

Also noted in the press release: Jani will be deported following his release from prison.

Witte and Henderson pleaded guilty to the same charge as Jani. Witte was sentenced in January to 26 months in federal prison, three years of supervised probation once he's released, and $763,089.21 in restitution. Henderson received 28 months in prison, the same three years of probation, and $400,858.07 in restitution. He was also order to forfeit $399,452.

Witte is currently housed at the U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility in Englewood. Henderson was sent to a federal prison in North Carolina. 

"Runners" in other states have been sentenced this year to similar prison terms, including four people in the Houston area and two others in South Carolina, per U.S. Department of Justice press releases.