Pak national sentenced for 4 yrs for laundering USD 20 million

A 49-year-old Pakistani national in the US was today sentenced to four years in prison for laundering over USD 19.6 million on behalf of the perpetrators of a massive international computer hacking and telecommunications fraud scheme.

Muhammad Sohail Qasmani had previously pleaded guilty before US District Judge Katharine S Hayden of committing wire fraud.

According to court papers, this massive international telecommunications fraud scheme, allegedly led by Noor Aziz, 55, of Karachi, resulted in a total losses exceeding USD 70 million.

This involved unauthorised access to the computer systems commonly known as PBX systems that ran the internal telephone networks of numerous businesses and organizations in the US.

Foreign-based hackers targeted the telephone systems of the victim corporations and placed calls to those systems in an attempt to identify unused telephone extensions.

Once the hackers identified unused extensions, they illegally reprogrammed the telephone systems so that they could be used to make unlimited long-distance calls, all of which were ultimately charged back to the victim corporations, federal prosecutors said.

The hacked telephone systems were then used to make calls to premium telephone numbers such as purported chat lines, adult entertainment, and psychic hotlines that generated revenue based on the calls' duration and were set up and controlled by Aziz. In actuality, the numbers provided no actual services.

Telephone company representatives who suspected fraudulent activity and called the numbers heard recordings of fake rings, fake password prompts, fake voicemail messages, music, or dead air on continuous loops.

"In 2008, Qasmani, who operated a money laundering and smuggling business in Thailand, agreed to launder proceeds of the scheme for Aziz. In furtherance of the conspiracy, Qasmani established multiple bank accounts to receive the money generated by the illicit telephone traffic. Qasmani also paid the hackers and dialers who worked for Aziz to keep the scheme going," federal prosecutors alleged.

For over nearly four years, Qasmani initiated money transfers to approximately 650 unique transferees, located in at least 10 countries, including the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, China, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Italy.

Qasmani moved a total of approximately USD 19.6 million in fraud proceeds. He kept laundering the money even after Aziz was arrested in connection with this scheme and later released by foreign authorities.

He was arrested in Los Angeles in 2012.

Judge Hayden also sentenced Qasmani to two years of supervised release. Qasmani must also forfeit USD 25,000 and pay restitution of USD 71,761,956.34.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)