Middlesex County Pair Conned Victims Across The Country, Cops Say

Akash Patel and Nikita Patel lived in an apartment in the Iselin section of Woodbridge, but they conned people across the country, police said.

They chose their targets after getting information about them from workers at call centers in India, police said.

In early September, a man from Kentucky called police in North Jersey and reported he’d been a victim of their scam, authorities said.

Police said they soon learned that man was probably just one of their more than two dozen victims within that week.

A detective acted quickly.

With help from three police departments and two corporate security units, Leonia police had the pair in custody two days later and had seized more than $19,000 in cash from their vehicle and their home, authorities said.

Now, two weeks into the investigation, that detective has identified more than 70 victims in 32 states, his boss said.

Police have also seized about $150,000 from six banks accounts, according to the police chief.

“I would like to recognize (Leonia) Detective Michael Jennings for his outstanding work on this case,’’ Leonia Chief Thomas P. Rowe said in a news release. “Because of Detective Jennings’ hard work and perseverance, many victims will be able recover the money they lost in this case. In some cases, the victims lost their life savings.”

The defendants, Akash Satish Patel, 32, and Nikita Natvarlal Patel, 25, both of the Iselin section of Woodbridge, are charged with second-degree conspiracy to commit theft by deception/coercion.

The pair live together on Elm Avenue in Iselin, but are not related.

Both are citizens of India, and Nikita Patel is in the country on an expired visa, police said.

Here’s the story of how Jennings put the case together, starting with a phone call from Kentucky.

According to a news release from Rowe:

On Sept. 2, a man from Lexington, Kentucky called Jennings and told the detective that he’d been the victim of an Internal Revenue Service scam earlier that day.

He said he received a call from someone who said he owed $1,400 to the IRS and would be arrested if he did not pay the agency.

The caller told him to wire $1,400 to a MoneyGram account at the CVS store on Broad Avenue in Leonia. The caller instructed the victim to wire the money to the name “Vincent Arora.”

The detective got video surveillance of the man who picked up the money at the CVS, and used that to send out a statewide crime alert.

The next day, the detective contacted MoneyGram, and after representatives of that company checked their internal system, they determined that someone using the name “Vincent Arora” had conducted about 30 transactions in the past week at MoneyGram locations around the state.

Representatives of MoneyGram’s Global Security Department began to track the transactions in that name, and they told Jennings that one was about to take place at the Walmart in Watchung.

The detective called that police department and the Walmart store, but they missed the transaction by about 10 minutes.

Jennings then began working with Watchung Detective Brian Emerick and Walmart’s Loss Prevention Department.

They obtained video footage of the MoneyGram transaction.

But this time, they also got video of another transaction the man made with his own debit card, along with video of his vehicle in the Walmart parking lot.

Jennings determined it was the same man who had picked up the money at the CVS in Leonia.

On Sept. 4, Jennings used the receipt from the debit card transaction at the Watchung Walmart to develop a suspect.

Then, MoneyGram representatives contacted him again.

Another transaction was about to take place at a CVS in Elizabeth.

Jennings called the store’s manager. The transaction had already happened.

But the detective was able to get a description of the people involved and the license plate number of the vehicle in which they were traveling.

Jennings alerted Elizabeth police, who spotted the vehicle and followed it into Union Township.

There, the pair conducted another transaction at the CVS on Magie Avenue.

Elizabeth police stopped the vehicle.

In the meantime, Jennings and Captain Scott Tamagny headed to the CVS, where they took the two defendants into custody.

Police got consent to search the vehicle, and inside, they found $9,140 in cash, along with receipts for transactions at MoneyGram locations throughout New Jersey.

With consent from Nikita Patel, Jennings seized another $10,822 in cash from her apartment.

Police learned the pair chose their victims after getting information about them from individuals working in call centers in India.

Bail for each of the defendants was set at $150,000 by Leonia Municipal Court Judge John DeSheplo, and they were both sent to the Bergen County Jail.

As a condition of bail, both Akash Patel and Nikita Patel were required to surrender their passports.

Rowe said he also wanted to thank the Watchung, Elizabeth and Union Police Departments and the Moneygram Global Security Department for their help with the investigation.

Photos courtesy Leonia police