Van Buren, N.Y. — A Van Buren man has been accused by federal prosecutors of receiving more than $1.7 million in a years-long fraud scheme.
The man, Tushal Rathod, 44, was charged with wire fraud, money laundering and two conspiracy counts. Each charge carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
Rathod was arrested Wednesday and arraigned the same day, records show. He is currently in custody and a detention hearing is scheduled for Monday afternoon in federal court in Binghamton.
The charges were brought by federal prosecutors in Providence, R.I., the state where one of Rathod’s victims is located.
An affidavit by Samuel Morgan, an FBI special agent who specializes in computer crime and fraud, details the allegations against Rathod.
Rathod pulled in $1.7 million from April 2022 to June 2024 through counterfeit checks and a type of fraud called business email compromise, Morgan said.
The money was deposited in seven accounts across six banks, Morgan said. Most of that was then converted to the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, he said.
Rathod was not acting alone, Morgan said. Some of the accounts were in the name of T3 Telecom LLC, a company he owns, while others were opened by a girlfriend and other family. Other people who worked with Rathod were identified by Morgan as “Keith,” “Pedro” and “Leon.”
One method that Rathod used to steal money was business email compromise, Morgan said.
An employee at a Rhode Island law firm received an email in June 2022 supposedly from an employee at Northpointe Bank. The two had been working together on a real estate transaction, and the bank employee had a request.
Could the law firm send $163,298 to a mortgage company? The bank employee included account information for the transfer.
The email was actually from Rathod, Morgan said. And he was the one who got the money.
In another instance, Rathod appeared to act as a conduit for stolen money.
A California credit union was fraudulently induced in January 2023 to send about $8 million to accounts controlled by a Minnesota resident, Morgan said.
Of that money, $900,000 was converted to a cashier’s check and deposited into an account Rathod controlled, he said. Most of that was then moved into Bitcoin.
Morgan included in his affidavit excerpts from some of Rathod’s emails with his alleged co-conspirators, who all are not facing charges.
One conversation in December 2024 was about keeping accounts open and not raising the suspicions of bank compliance officials.
At least three banks contacted Rathod in 2022 with suspicions about the money he was depositing, Morgan said. One closed his account and another restricted the services available to him.
Morgan quoted Rathod as saying: “Oh man. I feel you. It’s difficult doing this business but it’s got a lot of good money you can make.”
Staff writer Jon Moss covers breaking news, crime and public safety. He can be reached at jmoss@syracuse.com or @mossjon7.