Debashis Ghosh, a 62-year-old Indian-American businessman, is likely to lose his US citizenship as the Department of Justice moved to denaturalize him along with 11 other individuals. Ghosh committed wire fraud before and after he became a US citizen in 2012 and he was convicted after he naturalized but he concealed the crime during the naturalization process.Before Debashis Ghosh naturalized, he conspired to defraud investors of $2.5 million intended for the construction of an aircraft maintenance facility. After naturalizing, Ghosh, a native of India, continued the fraudulent scheme, misrepresenting the location and safekeeping of the investor funding, the document said.But in his 2012 naturalization application and interview, Ghosh claimed that he had never committed a crime or offense for which he had not been arrested.Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a naturalized US citizen’s citizenship may be revoked, and certificate of naturalization canceled, if the naturalization was illegally procured or procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.The denaturalization complaint against Ghosh alleged that he is subject to denaturalization because during the period in which he was statutorily required to demonstrate good moral character, he committed a crime involving “moral turpitude, committed unlawful acts that adversely reflected on his moral character, and falsely testified about his crime.”Additionally, Ghosh willfully misrepresented the material fact of his crime during his naturalization proceedings.
Who is Debashis Ghosh?
Debashis Ghosh entered the US multiple times on various non-immigrant visas starting from 1991. In 2001, an employer filed for his Green Card. In 2012, Ghosh applied for citizenship. The Justice Department said he was categorically asked if he had ever committed a crime or offense for which he was not arrested. He said ‘no’. He maintained his stand in all other subsequent interviews and became a US itizen.In 2016, he was indicted along with a co-conspirator with conspiring to commit wire fraud that took place from 2010 to 2014. In 2017, Ghosh was found guilty.
What was the fraud?
Co-conspirator Keith Eric Jergensen and Ghosh were co-Chief Executive Officers of Chicago-based Verdant Capital Group. New York-based firm Laurentian Aerospace Corporation had retained Verdant to raise funds for the construction of an airplane maintenance, repair and overhaul facility to be built at the former US Air Force base in Plattsburgh. Jergensen and Ghosh asked Laurentian to invest $2.5 million as seed money for the project. They and Laurentian agreed that this money would remain in a Wells Fargo account and could not be moved without the authorisation of Laurentian.Jergensen and Ghosh misappropriated an additional $2.4 million in funds that other businesses had entrusted to them. Laurentian, drawing on funds contributed by its board members and one outside investor, wired $2.5 million into the Wells Fargo account in December 2010. Five days later, Jergensen and Ghosh began transferring the money out of the account without Laurentian’s authorisation, and by March 2011 they had transferred all of the $2.5 million out of the account.Jergensen and Ghosh used Laurentian’s $2.5 million to pay Verdant’s expenses including employees and contractors, and to pay others. The duo then spent several years falsely assuring Laurentian and its investors that their money was safe and secure, with Jergensen going so far as to forge a memorandum of understanding that purported to show that Laurentian’s money was in a secured bank account at Wells Fargo.The victim investors included a retired US Air Force Colonel, a former New York City Deputy Mayor, a retired law firm partner and several retired executives from the financial and airline industries.
