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December 17, 2019

Man Pleads Guilty To Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering

On October 10, 2019, in the Northern District of Georgia, Devin Bradford Pope pled guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering. Pope and coconspirators had previously been indicted on charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, and money laundering on September 4, 2018, in a scheme that involved extorting money from victims in the United States by oftentimes purporting to be agents of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and threatening to arrest victims if they did not pay alleged tax debts.

According to the indictment, from about August 2013 through May 2018, Pope and the codefendants did knowingly conspire with each other and others to conduct and attempt to conduct financial transactions affecting interstate commerce that involved conspiracy to commit wire fraud. They knew that the property involved in the financial transactions represented the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity.

The conspiracy involved call centers that operated primarily in and around Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. The callers used multiple IRS impersonation call scripts and payday loan scripts outlining what to say to each victim that they contacted. Coconspirators would instruct victims to go to banks or automated teller machines to withdraw money, use this money to purchase prepaid stored value cards from retail stores, and then provide the unique serial number of the cards to the callers.

Pope and the coconspirators retrieved the fraud proceeds from various MoneyGram® or Western Union® locations in Georgia and elsewhere, sometimes using false identification in the fictitious names, and they subsequently deposited the victim-scammed funds into United States bank accounts of individuals and businesses. The loss associated with Pope’s conduct is between $15,000 and $40,000.

Pope could face a maximum term of 20 years’ imprisonment and be ordered to pay a maximum fine of $500,000 and to make full restitution to all victims of the offenses.

Sentencing in this matter is scheduled for January 23, 2020.

Source:  The facts in this case narrative come from the following publicly available documents: N.D. Ga. Indict., filed Sep. 4, 2018; N.D. Ga. Plea Agr. filed Oct. 10, 2019; N.D. Ga. Crim. Docket filed Oct. 15, 2019.