Vinod Dadlani Jailed in $200M Credit Card Fraud Scam

Inside a Jersey City jewelry store that glittered with ill-gotten gains, Vinod Dadlani, 53, of Lyndhurst, New Jersey, helped fuel a $200 million international credit card fraud scheme — one of the largest ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice. Today, he was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison for his role in the sprawling conspiracy, which relied on thousands of fabricated identities and phony credit profiles to loot financial institutions across the country.

Dadlani pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud before U.S. District Judge Anne E. Thompson, who handed down the sentence in Trenton federal court. According to court documents and admissions made under oath, Dadlani knowingly allowed co-conspirators — including Tahir Lodhi, Babar Qureshi, and Ijaz Butt — to use stolen credit cards at his store, processing fraudulent transactions and splitting the proceeds. His business became a cash-out hub in a criminal network that manipulated the very backbone of the U.S. credit system.

The fraud operation followed a ruthless three-phase playbook: first, the creation of over 7,000 fake identities with forged IDs and synthetic credit files; second, inflating the creditworthiness of those ghosts with sham payments and fake income records; and third, going on spending sprees with no intention of repayment. The fallout totaled more than $200 million in confirmed losses to banks, retailers, and credit agencies — with Dadlani’s jewelry store raking in illicit sales from the spree.

To sustain the scheme, the conspirators managed over 1,800 drop addresses nationwide — apartments, houses, and P.O. boxes used to receive cards and statements tied to the false identities. These ghost addresses formed the logistical skeleton of a fraud machine that stretched from New Jersey to California. Nineteen defendants have now pleaded guilty since the October 2013 indictment, but Dadlani’s role stood out for its brazen integration of a legitimate storefront into a criminal cashout pipeline.

In addition to 24 months behind bars, Judge Thompson ordered Dadlani to serve two years of supervised release and mandated forfeiture of $411,000 — a fraction of the total damage, but a tangible clawback for justice. The investigation was led by the FBI’s Cyber Division in Newark, under Special Agent in Charge Timothy Gallagher, with critical support from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Secret Service, and the Social Security Administration.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Zach Intrater and Daniel V. Shapiro of the Economic Crimes Unit, along with Barbara Ward, Acting Chief of the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Unit. It was brought under the umbrella of President Barack Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force — a sweeping interagency coalition that has prosecuted nearly 10,000 financial crimes in the past three fiscal years. In a system built on trust, Dadlani and his co-conspirators exploited the cracks — and now, they’re paying the price.