WARREN — A superseding indictment in a 2024 federal criminal case adds three additional defendants to a criminal enterprise that allegedly stole more than $127,000 from a Warren woman over age 60 through a “phantom hacker” scheme in which the perpetrators typically pose as a customer service employee at a company or bank and tell the person their finances have been compromised.

The perpetrator then refers the victim directly or indirectly to other perpetrators posing as additional company or bank employees or government agents with the phony goal of assisting the victim in avoiding or mitigating the effects of the bogus account problem, according to the superseding indictment.

In the case of the Warren woman, the end result was a fraud that cost the woman $127,000 of her money, the superseding indictment states.

Among those newly indicted is Shaliniben D. Patel, a United States citizen, who the superseding indictment describes as having lived in Ohio at the time of the fraud and having traveled to the homes of victims at or near their homes, including driving by car to pick up currency or gold provided by victims to further the fraudulent enterprise.

Patel and other co-conspirators traveled to meet with victims at or near their homes, the Jan. 21 superseding indictment states.

The frauds took place in the northern district of Ohio around July 2021 through April 2024, the superseding indictment states.

Also added as a defendant is Fnu Lnu, also known as Sunil Ray, who operated out of the Republic of India, and Samarthkumar Bharatkuman Avaiya, a citizen of the Republic of India who was in the United States on an F-1 visa and lived in Ohio.

The two men originally indicted in 2024 in the case were Anil Mangukia, then 39, of Edison, New Jersey, and Yash Navadia, then 25, of Secaucus, New Jersey. At the time, they were accused of stealing $127,000 from the Warren woman and attempting to steal an additional $650,000 from her.

The scams included such tactics as having the victim withdraw money and converting it into cryptocurrency that was transferred to the co-conspirators. The co-conspirators would tell the victim that the reason for the transfer was to put the money into a secure account. But that was a ruse, the superseding indictment states.

Among the offenses the defendants are accused of committing are money laundering and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The indictments have specifications seeking forfeiture of about $1.3 million in allegedly stolen funds from various victims.

The co-conspirators sometimes obtained the victims’ trust by pretending to help them address what appeared to be fraudulent charges on one of their financial accounts but then emailing the victims falsified invoices for transactions from a digital payment company and providing a phone number for the victims to call to contest the charges, the superseding indictment alleges.

When the victims called to contest the charges, members of the conspiracy posed as representatives of the payment company in order to make the victim think they were helping the victim when in fact they were not.

The co-conspirators then falsely stated that they were issuing refunds but later said they had mistakenly given the victims too much money and instructed the victims on how to pay it back, telling the victims to purchase gold and make deposits into cryptocurrency ATMs.

Coconspirators often subjected victims to new scams after obtaining funds through one scam, often using the victim’s trust in one co-conspirator posing as a representative of one trusted entity, such as a bank or payment company, to connect victims with representatives of other trusted entities, such as law enforcement or government officials, but those representatives also were phony.

In some cases, the phony representatives used trust gained through earlier scams and the false impression that the victims had been saved from adverse consequences to convince victims that their assets were in danger of being stolen and needed to be transferred for safekeeping, the superseding indictment states.

The superseding indictment listed various frauds committed against the Warren woman in January 2024 that included many of the tactics listed.

“On or about Jan. 17, 2024, a co-conspirator posing as a government agent told (the Warren woman) that it was necessary for (her) to withdraw funds from her retirement and investment accounts and secure those assets in a purported U.S. Treasury ‘vault’ pending a purported investigation.

“From on or about Jan. 18, 2024, through on or about Jan. 19, 2024, a co-conspirator, posing as a government agent, directed and caused (the woman) to withdraw funds from (her) retirement account.

“From on or about Jan. 29, 2024, through on or about Jan. 31, 2024, a co-conspirator posing as a government agent directed (the woman) to use (her) withdrawn retirement funds to purchase gold bars from a specified bullion company. On or about Jan. 30, 2024, co-conspirators directed (the woman) to send co-conspirators the records that (the woman) received from the bullion company in connection with the purchase they had directed her to make.”

The document lists about $1.3 million as of Jan. 12, 2026, that federal agents seized in April 2024 from various cryptocurrency accounts in connection to the frauds and about $10,000 that was seized using a search warrant Feb. 14, 2024, at a business in New York City associated with Mangukia.

U.S. District Court Judge Donald Nugent is presiding over the case, which has a jury trial date of 8:30 a.m. Feb. 23 in Cleveland Federal Court, where Nugent held a telephone pretrial hearing last week. All five defendants must still be arraigned on the superseding indictment, according to court documents.