Are U.S.-Indians making mark in corporate crimes?

By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 09 February 2011, 23:56 IST   |    54 Comments
Printer Print Email Email
Are U.S.-Indians making mark in corporate crimes?
Banglore: Indians are among the largest ethnic groups legally immigrating to the United States since the 20 century and U.S. has become a second home to us. According to a U.S. Census Bureau, the population of Indians has grown from 1,679,000 in 2000 to 2,570,000 in 2007: a growth rate of 53 percent proving to be the fastest growing ethnic groups in the United States. But how is this community representing India? Are they also getting influenced by the scams happening in India? In the past 2 months we have come across six such scams which involve Indian Americans. 1.Indian American in a $10 million kickback and bribery scam. Anjan Dutta-Gupta, Indian American founder and president of a technology services firm, and a civilian employee of the U.S. Navy have been charged in a $10 million kickback and bribery scam. Gupta founder and president of Roswell, Georgia based Advanced Solutions For Tomorrow, or ASFT and Ralph Mariano, a civilian programme manager and senior systems engineer for the Naval Sea Systems Command. Gupta is accused of funneling about $10 million to Mariano, his relatives and friends in return for his role in securing millions of dollars in Navy contracts for Dutta-Gupta's technology firm. The business and banking records show that the alleged arrangement between Mariano, Dutta-Gupta and unnamed ASFT subcontractors had been going on since 1999. 2.U.S. Federal regulators charge co-founder of a New York Hedge Fund U.S. Federal regulators have charged Sunil Bhalla, a former senior Indian American executive of tech company Polycom, co-founder of a New York hedge fund in what has been called the biggest insider-trading case in U.S. history. In a civil case filed in a New York court, the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged Bhalla and three others for providing confidential information to Feinblatt and Yokuty that enabled them to make about $15 million from trading on the information. 3.Indian American manager fined for defrauding investors Neil Godbole, 29, of San Francisco, agreed to a $40,000 civil penalty for concealing large trading losses in his Opulent Lite hedge fund, the SEC said. In a cease-and-desist order, the SEC accused Godbole of fraudulent and misleading conduct and deliberately providing false information to investors. 4.Indian American convicted of selling U.S. military secrets to China Weeks after China conducted a flight test of its new J-20 stealth fighter, a U.S. federal court set to sentence Indian-American Noshir Gowadia, a former engineer of B-2 stealth bomber, who has been convicted of selling military secrets to Beijing. Mumbai-born Gowadia, 66, was convicted on 14 counts on charges including conspiracy, communicating national defense, violating the arms export control act and information to aid a foreign nation. Between 2003 and 2005 Gowadia made six secret trips into mainland China and exchanged numerous communications to help Chinese defense engineers design a cruise missile that is able to evade air-to-air, heat-seeking missiles, according the federal indictment against him. He now faces life sentence. 5.Indian American charged for undeclared bank accounts The indictment filed in Newark federal court charges Vaibhav Dahake, an Indian-American businessman for concealing his bank accounts. From 2001 through 2010, Dahake maintained undeclared bank accounts in the British Virgin Islands and India that he failed to report on his federal income tax returns, prosecutors said. The indictment said that in 2001, Dahake received from the bank an unsolicited letter advertising bank accounts in India that paid high interest rates. 6.Indian-origin man charged for fraud U.S. prosecutors have charged Samir Barai, an Indian-origin former hedge fund manager at Citigroup, with conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud as part of a wide-ranging investigation into the country's biggest insider trading case. Barai is accused of trading on inside information about technology companies after receiving tips from a consultant working for expert network firm Primary Global Research. In wake of growing number of scams, "black money" or illicit money has become India's curse but has the problem worsened with Indians living in U.S. also contributing to this?