Indian student in US loses $5,000 in immigration scam

An Indian student pursuing her Master’s degree in the United States was duped by fraudsters posing as US immigration officials, Newsweek reported. 

Shreya Bedi, a graduate student at Indiana University Bloomington who arrived in the US in 2022 on an F-1 visa, was targeted on May 29. 

Scammers, pretending to be officers from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), informed her that she had allegedly violated immigration laws. They pressured her into believing that she would be facing arrest and deportation unless she made immediate payments.

The fraudsters instructed her to pay a so-called bond amounting to $5,000 (₹4.25 lakh) in the form of Apple and Target gift cards. The perpetrators reportedly manipulated her using official-sounding language and even provided details like a badge number and a verifiable ICE office contact to lend credibility to their claims. 

She was then reportedly contacted by someone pretending to be from a local police department, who warned her not to disconnect the call, asserting that her phone was being monitored due to an arrest warrant.

The scammers reportedly had extensive personal information about her such as her hometown in India, visa status, and academic background making the threat seem legitimate. Over the course of a three-hour phone call, they subjected her to intense psychological pressure, preventing her from contacting anyone else and convincing her that non-compliance would worsen her situation.

The student ultimately complied, purchasing the gift cards and sharing the redemption codes with the fraudsters. They falsely claimed that a police officer would meet her to collect the cards and documents the next day, but no one ever arrived.

Following the incident, a close friend of the student launched a GoFundMe campaign to help her recover financially and to warn other international students about the risks. The fundraiser highlights that Bedi had just completed her degree after years of hard work and was looking forward to building a future in the US. Instead, she now finds herself burdened with new debt, emotional trauma, and uncertainty about her next steps.

The friend organising the fundraiser stated that the student is living alone in the US, without any local family support, and is currently juggling the pressures of rent, student loans, and the aftermath of the scam. They alleged that the scammers manipulated government resources, fabricated legal threats, and exploited the broader atmosphere of fear surrounding immigration enforcement.