Abdul Hameed, 45, Houston, Texas, Bilal Saleem, 26, Woodbridge, Virginia, Naim Aslam Mann, 32, Baltimore, Maryland, Basir Chand, 43, Springfield, Virginia, Arshad Hussain, 47, Dumfries, Virginia, and Jawad Ahmad were indicted yesterday by a federal grand jury for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and conspiracy to organize a continuing financial crimes enterprise, and with related substantive counts.

The indictment alleges that the defendants conspired to devise a scheme in which they used various fraudulent identities that they controlled to obtain numerous credit card accounts, personal and business bank accounts, and mortgage loan accounts. According to the indictment, the defendants established multiple false businesses used to fabricate employment and salary information for the false identities, which was then provided to credit card companies, leasing offices, mortgage companies, and financial institutions for the purpose of obtaining credit in the names of the false identities. The defendants also rented apartments and purchased properties using false identities, and these locations were then used to receive mail from the lenders addressed to the false identities and businesses and to receive shipments of goods purchased using the false identities.

The indictment further alleges that the defendants organized, managed, and supervised a continuing financial crimes enterprise – that is, a series of violations of the mail fraud statute that affected a financial institution and was committed by at least four persons acting in concert – and received $5,000,000 or more in gross receipts from the criminal enterprise during a 24-month period from in or about May 2005 to May 2007. Hundreds of thousands of dollars obtained from the scheme were transferred by the defendants to accounts in Pakistan.