US indicts nine people for smuggling Indian immigrants

Nine people from India were indicted for smuggling undocumented immigrants into the United States through Thailand, federal prosecutors said.

A federal grand jury said that over the past five years the defendants "" eight Indian nationals and a naturalised US citizen "" brought a dozen immigrants into the US in a scheme that involved false passports and fabricated documents.

They allegedly charged thousands of dollars per person, organising the conspiracy during meetings in bars and at doughnut shops in Chicago and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. A video store in Mount Prospect, Illinois, was used to transfer passports and money.

Eight suspects were arrested on December 5 in Chicago and Pennsylvania, while the ninth, 22-year-old Rajesh Katwa of the Chicago area, is considered a fugitive.

The indictment describes how the alleged ringleader Naresh Patel, 45, a native of India who is a naturalised US citizen, was heard outlining his plan to smuggle people from India, China and Egypt during a September 2006 meeting at an off-track betting parlor in York.

About five months later, six Indian nationals were moved through Thailand, Los Angeles and Philadelphia before ending up in a York motel, where a woman paid a $25,000 cash fee, the indictment said. A second group of six followed the same route to a motel in Harrisburg in August.

The defendants, if convicted, face maximum possible sentences of 15 years. Federal authorities are seeking the forfeit of $69,000 seized at the time of arrest.