A 22-year-old Indian national who traveled into the United States on a visitor visa to collect cash and gold from scam victims has been sentenced to four years in federal prison for his role in a $3.7 million fraud scheme that targeted at least 15 people across multiple states, including a New Berlin couple who handed over more than half a million dollars in gold coins before police intervened.
Roshan Shah was sentenced on July 27 in Milwaukee federal court after pleading guilty in June to conspiracy to commit money laundering, according to WISN-TV. A federal judge also ordered Shah to pay $4.2 million in restitution. U.S. District Judge Brett Ludwig presided over the case, which was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Zachary Corey and Peter Smyczek, per the U.S. Department of Justice.
Shah, who was attending college in Canada on a student visa, was recruited as an in-person courier tasked with traveling into the U.S. solely to pick up cash and gold from targeted victims, according to the Justice Department. In a letter to the court, Shah said a friend had offered him what he believed was a parcel service job that only required a driver's license and an American visa, per the same account referenced by WISN-TV.
A New Berlin Couple's Costly Ordeal
Among Shah's victims was a New Berlin couple who gave away $526,095.40 in gold coins to couriers over three encounters spanning three weeks, according to WISN-TV's reporting. Scammers had convinced them their bank accounts were compromised and told them to buy gold or withdraw cash so an agent could pick it up for safekeeping in a Washington, D.C. safe deposit box, a deception tactic detailed by The New Indian Express.
The couple was preparing to hand over another $185,977 in gold coins when they realized they had been scammed, WISN-TV reported. The scammers had also told the couple they were under constant surveillance, a claim meant to keep victims compliant and afraid to seek help.
Police Swap Gold for Rocks in Sting
New Berlin police set up a sting operation, replacing the gold coins in the pickup box with rocks before the next handoff. Officers arrested Shah on August 4, 2025, at a Speedway gas station near 124th Street and Oklahoma Avenue in West Allis, according to WISN-TV. The arrest came out of a joint investigation between Homeland Security Investigations Wisconsin and the New Berlin Police Department, the Justice Department said.
A federal grand jury in Milwaukee returned a formal indictment against Shah on August 19, 2025, roughly two weeks after his arrest, charging him with conspiracy to commit money laundering under 18 U.S.C. § 1956(h), per Justice Department records. That statute carries a maximum penalty of up to 20 years in prison and fines as high as $500,000 or twice the value of the laundered funds, though Shah's four-year sentence fell well below that ceiling.
Federal investigators traced Shah's courier pickups to 15 victims located across multiple states, including Wisconsin, Florida, and Arizona, according to CBS 58. In his letter to the court, Shah said he realized the package pickups were wrong but continued because he needed to pay his bills. He also said he began changing his life after his arrest and expressed that he was sorry for his involvement in the crime, committing to not repeating his mistakes.
A Pattern Investigators Have Tracked for Years
WISN-TV's 12 News Investigates team has been tracking the gold scam problem for more than a year and a half, and in July 2025 it reported on a gold bar scam affecting other Wisconsin victims. Robin Jacobs, director of the enforcement bureau at the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions' Division of Securities, told the station that scammers only need to succeed 1 to 2 percent of the time to make their operations profitable.
Jacobs advised that people should be skeptical of unsolicited callers and suggested hanging up and independently calling the verified number of a bank or police department before acting on any request. Government officials have warned they will never ask people to buy gold or other precious metals, and the FBI wants scam victims to report incidents through its Internet Crime Complaint Center.
The FBI's IC3 began tracking gold courier fraud as a distinct threat category in 2024, when it recorded $219 million in reported losses across 525 complaints nationwide. The bureau's 2025 report showed overall cybercrime losses topped $20.9 billion, with victims aged 60 and older accounting for $7.7 billion of that total — a roughly 60 percent jump from $4.8 billion in 2024, according to AARP. The FBI's Boston Division has separately warned that scammers often issue secret passcodes or serial numbers to victims to pass along to couriers, a tactic meant to create a false sense of official verification during handoffs.
Shah's case fits a pattern Hoodline has tracked with growing frequency nationwide, as overseas call centers recruit temporary visa holders to serve as low-level couriers while the bulk of stolen proceeds flows back to organizers overseas who remain far harder for federal authorities to reach.
