Illinois Man Gets 2 Years After Guilty Plea in Staged-Robbery U Visa Fraud Case

A federal judge in Chicago has sentenced Parth Nayi to two years in prison for his role in a scheme that used fake armed robberies to manufacture crime victims for the U visa program.

U.S. District Judge Mary M. Rowland handed down the sentence Thursday, Oct. 22, and fined Nayi $50,000. Nayi, 29, of Woodridge, a Chicago suburb, pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiracy to commit visa fraud, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois said. U.S. Attorney Andrew S. Boutros announced the sentence.

What prosecutors say happened

From 2022 to 2024, Nayi organized and took part in hundreds of staged armed robberies, according to the Justice Department. The targets were coffee shops, restaurants, liquor stores and gas stations in Chicago and suburbs including Lombard, Elmwood Park, St. Charles, Hickory Hills, River Grove, Lake Villa and South Holland. Prosecutors say the scheme reached beyond Illinois, with robberies staged across the country.

Nayi recruited the fake victims, paid store owners for the use of their locations, and coordinated and paid the fake robbers, prosecutors said. He also coached the supposed victims through the application process.

The people playing robbers carried what appeared to be firearms, approached the purported victims and demanded money. Prosecutors say some of them at times struck the victims to make the scene look real. In one robbery, a store employee was critically injured by a gunshot fired by one of the alleged assailants.

The money and the paperwork

Thousands of people posing as victims each paid Nayi between $5,000 and $30,000, according to the Justice Department. At the top of that range, a single participant paid the cost of a new car.

Afterward, the purported victims obtained law-enforcement certification that they had been victims of a qualifying crime and had been helpful to the investigation. Fox News Digital's account of the court filings says they were coached to submit I-918 supplements to police for that purpose. They then filed fraudulent U visa applications with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, citing the robberies.

The U visa was created under a 2000 law sponsored by Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., to protect trafficking victims and "battered immigrant women." It is set aside for foreign nationals who are victims of certain crimes and help police.

Smith told Fox News Digital the abuse is "especially egregious." "Anyone who engages in visa fraud or falsifies claims to obtain any government benefit should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and if guilty, jailed," he said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Saqib Mohammad Hussain was blunter in the sentencing memo. Nayi "was the main organizer and at the center of almost every single one of the hundreds of staged robberies that were perpetrated," Hussain wrote, adding that he "significantly corrupted the federal U Visa program."

The sentence

The Associated Press reported that Rowland gave Nayi a year more than prosecutors recommended. His attorney, George Gomez, had asked for probation.

That is a wide gap. Defense wanted no prison time, the government wanted one year, and the judge landed on two. The notes from the hearing do not include Gomez's reasoning, and Nayi pleaded guilty to the charge.

Others in the case

Five other people were also convicted as part of the federal investigation, CBS Chicago reported from the U.S. Attorney's Office announcement.

Prosecutors have also named alleged co-conspirators. Kewon Young is accused of helping recruit and organize the fake robbers. Bhikhabhai Patel, Nilesh Patel, Ravinaben Patel and Rajnikumar Patel are accused of reaching out to Nayi to pose as victims so they could apply for U visas. These are allegations, not findings of guilt.

The case has already entered the immigration debate in Congress. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, cited the scheme while introducing the PAUSE Act, which would temporarily halt all immigration. Roy pointed to the foreign-born population being the highest in U.S. history and criticized the Senate for stalling the Save America Act.

Open questions

The scale is what stands out: hundreds of fake robberies, thousands of paying participants, and at least one real gunshot injury. The scheme worked only because the program's front end relies on a law-enforcement certification that the fake victims were able to obtain.

The Justice Department has not said how many of the resulting U visa applications USCIS approved, or what happens to applicants who obtained status through the staged robberies. That determination, and the remaining co-defendant cases, will decide how far the consequences of this scheme reach beyond Nayi's two-year term.