Staff report
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Atharva (aka Andy) Shailesh Sathawane, 23, a citizen of India who was living in Tampa, has been sentenced to 216 months in federal prison after being found guilty by a federal jury of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Judge Allen Winsor also ordered restitution to 12 different victims, totaling $4,356,691.28, and noted that Sathawane is likely to be deported at the end of his sentence.
The Gainesville victim, who was 83 years old at the time, was the target of a scheme in which a scammer contacted him by phone and said $100 had been sent to his PayPal account, so he needed to pay it back. The scammer then told the victim that $10,000 had been sent to his PayPal account, and he needed to pay it back in Bitcoin. The victim reportedly paid the money into an unknown crypto wallet…