Credit Fraud Sucks Millions Out of Money Center Banks

NEW YORK – Fifteen foreign nationals were indicted by a federal grand jury this week on charges of using a sophisticated credit fraud to drain more than $10 million out the nation’s biggest banks. The group produced fake driver’s licenses, resident alien cards, Social Security cards and tax identification documents to establish accounts at the banks in the names of fraudulent identities they called ‘chickens,’ according to the indictments. The accounts were used to obtain bank loans, mortgages, credit card and other debt at Citibank, HSBC, Washington Mutual and Bank of America that were defaulted on or used to buy millions of dollars worth of merchandise. Among those indicted as co-conspirators were: Naveed Ali Bhindar, known as the ‘Sheikh’; Ghulam Mehmoud, aka ‘Mama’; Quaiser Qureshi, ‘Auntie’; Arie Benshimon, ‘the Jewish guy’; Oscar Sanchez, ‘Bank of America’; and Pradipt Sharma, the ‘Citibank guy.’