MIAMI (AP) — Five people were sentenced in Florida for their roles in a scheme that got manufacturers to sell them medical devices at heavy discount under the impression the products were being sent to U.S. troops or Afghans when they really were being sold for great profit in the United States.
Federal prosecutors in Miami said Byramji Javat was responsible for a fraud loss of about $60 million from 2014 to 2017. He was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to a count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
According to the indictment, Javat was the ringleader in the scheme to buy medical devices from manufacturers who had discounted the goods heavily while under the impression that they were going to U.S. troops in Afghanistan or the Afghan people. Instead, Javat and his associates sold the devices in the United States at significant profit, prosecutors said.
After purchasing the devices, Javat and his associates would ship them abroad and then immediately bring them back to the United States for sale. They also would provide fraudulent shipping documentation to the manufacturers showing the devices had been exported when they never left the country, the indictment said.
A Miami customs broker, Luis Soto, was convicted of conspiracy and other charges and sentenced to six years in prison.
Two other associates, Sunil Chopra and William Armando, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and were sentenced, respectively, to more than two years in prison and a year and a half in prison.
The fifth defendant, Emanuel Daskos, of Hallandale Beach, Florida, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and was sentenced to two years of probation.
