An Indian businessman, Monishkumar Kirankumar Doshi Shah, who operated jewelry companies in New York, has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for evading customs duties on over $13.5 million worth of jewelry and for running an unlicensed money transmitting operation. Shah, aged 40 and residing in Mumbai and Jersey City, New Jersey, pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud conspiracy and aiding in the operation of the illegal money business.

In addition to the prison sentence, the court ordered Shah to pay $742,500 in restitution for the wire fraud and forfeited $11.1 million related to both the fraud and money transmitting offenses. He was also sentenced to two years of supervised release.

Between December 2019 and April 2022, Shah orchestrated a scheme to avoid customs duties by routing jewelry shipments from Turkey and India through South Korea. His co-conspirators in South Korea would relabel the jewelry to falsely claim it was from South Korea, bypassing the 5.5% duty. Shah also instructed customers to create fake invoices and packing lists and used a third-party shipping company to mislead U.S. Customs about the origin of the goods.

Additionally, from July 2020 to November 2021, Shah operated several jewelry businesses in New York's Diamond District, conducting over $10.3 million in illegal financial transactions. He collected cash from customers and facilitated its conversion into wire transfers or checks through other jewelry companies. These operations often involved moving large sums of money in a single day for a fee.

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