Illinois Man Gets Two Years for Masterminding a Nationwide Fake Robbery Visa Scam

A Scheme Built on Staged Gunpoint Holdups

A Woodridge man has been sentenced to two years in federal prison for conspiring to stage armed robberies that allowed purported victims to seek U.S. immigration visas reserved for crime victims. It sounds like the plot of a crime thriller — but federal prosecutors say it was a very real, very organized operation that played out at gas stations, coffee shops, and restaurants across the country for nearly two years.

Federal prosecutors said Parth Nayi, 29, of Woodridge, organized and participated in hundreds of fake armed robberies between 2022 and 2024 at businesses including coffee shops, restaurants, liquor stores, and gas stations. During the staged robberies, authorities said, the phony robbers brandished what appeared to be firearms, approached the purported victims, and demanded money. To anyone watching from the parking lot, it would have looked terrifyingly real.

How the Fraud Actually Worked

Thousands of fake victims each paid Nayi $5,000 to $30,000 to participate in the scam so that they could later apply for Nonimmigrant U-Visas, which are set aside for foreign nationals who are victims of certain crimes and are helpful to law enforcement in the investigation. The U-Visa program exists to protect genuinely vulnerable people — immigrants who suffer real crimes and cooperate with police — making this exploitation of it particularly cynical.

Nayi worked with others to recruit fake victims, pay off store owners to use their locations, coordinate and pay fake robbers, and coach the bogus victims through the plan, according to prosecutors. Afterward, the purported victims submitted forms to local law enforcement to obtain certification that they were victims of a qualifying crime and were helpful in the investigation. Upon receiving the certification, they then submitted fraudulent U-Visa applications to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services predicated upon their alleged status as robbery victims. The entire pipeline — from staged holdup to immigration filing — was carefully engineered.

The staged incidents occurred in Chicago and numerous suburbs, including Lombard, Elmwood Park, St. Charles, Hickory Hills, River Grove, Lake Villa, and South Holland. The earliest staged robbery listed in the indictment was at a Fas Fuel in Lombard on or about October 6, 2022.

The Verdict and What Prosecutors Said

Nayi pleaded guilty on January 14 to conspiracy to commit visa fraud. On Thursday, October 23, U.S. District Judge Mary M. Rowland sentenced him to two years in federal prison and imposed a $50,000 fine. Five other people were also convicted as part of the federal investigation.

According to the government's sentencing memorandum, Assistant U.S. Attorney Saqib Mohammad Hussain wrote that "Defendant was the main organizer and at the center of almost every single one of the hundreds of staged robberies that were perpetrated." Prosecutors also noted that Nayi "significantly corrupted the federal U Visa program, designed to provide a benefit to a particularly vulnerable group" — foreign nationals who genuinely need protection.

A Broader Warning for Immigration Fraud

The sentence was announced by Andrew S. Boutros, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Ryan Whalen, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI; and Matthew Scarpino, Special Agent-in-Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Chicago. The involvement of both the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations signals how seriously federal authorities treated the case.

Cases like this one tend to have ripple effects well beyond the courtroom. When fraud infiltrates programs designed for the most vulnerable immigrants, it invites political scrutiny and can make it harder for legitimate crime victims to navigate an already complex system. With five co-defendants also convicted, federal prosecutors have made clear they view this as a wide-reaching conspiracy — not a one-man operation. How courts handle the remaining defendants in the months ahead will likely shape the full picture of just how deeply this scheme penetrated the U-Visa process.