Basir Chand, 43 of Springfield, was part of an organization that collected more than $5 million through an elaborate credit card and mortgage fraud scheme from May 2005 to May 2007.
The Springfield resident was sentenced Friday, Nov. 9 in U.S. District Court in Alexandria to 78 months in prison. He was also ordered to pay $5 million in forfeiture for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and to organize a continuing financial crimes enterprise.
Chand used his position as a loan officer for a mortgage lender to make fraudulent loans to fictitious identities, according to U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg.
Along with six co-conspirators named in federal indictments, according to Rosenberg, Chand established multiple fictitious businesses in order to fabricate employment and salary information for fictitious identities. Chand and co-defendants sent this information to credit card companies, leasing offices, mortgage companies and financial institutions to obtain credit in the names of the false identifies. Chand and his co-defendants also rented apartments and purchased properties using the false identifies, and the locations were used to receive mail and shipments from lenders.
Chand and his cohorts received more than $5 million from May 2005 to May 2007 from the criminal enterprise. Hundreds of thousands of dollars obtained from the scheme were transferred by the defendants to accounts in Pakistan, according to Rosenberg.
Bilal Saleem, 27 of Woodbridge, and Naim Aslam Mann, 33 of Baltimore, Md., pleaded guilty to related charges and await sentencing, according to Rosenberg. Abdul Hammed, Jawad Ahmad, and Ozair Idris are scheduled to go to trial in January 2008.