North Dakota woman, 93, lost $45K to scammers invoking Pam Bondi’s name — and one was texting from federal prison

For this particular fraud ring, members posed as PayPal representatives or federal agents and told targets they needed to send money that would be returned to them later. The North Dakota woman was told to mail the $45,000 check and was assured that Attorney General Pam Bondi would personally help her get a new ID card and recover her funds.

From his cell, Singh then texted a phone number in India a photo of a bank receipt showing the woman’s check had been deposited in Edinburg, Texas, a city in the Rio Grande Valley near the Mexican border.

How Singh first landed in prison

Obviously, we’re talking about a repeat offender here, so it helps to go back to his first violation. In September 2021, Singh was 27 and living in Houston. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud for his part in a fraud ring that went after elderly victims across the country. Singh’s job was to act as a “runner,” collecting parcels of victims’ cash while using fraudulent international driver’s licenses adorned with fake names.

That earlier fraud ring specialized in what’s known as a tech support refund scam. Callers posing as computer technicians talk victims into granting them remote access to their machines to expose bank and credit card information. Then the scammers doctor the victims’ accounts to make it look as though they had been refunded far too much because of a typo, say $10,000 instead of $100, and demand the “overpayment” back in cash, gift cards, or wire transfers. Prosecutors said some victims were hit repeatedly and threatened with bodily harm if they didn’t pony up.

Singh was sentenced to 78 months, or six and a half years, in federal prison. When the last of his four co-defendants was sentenced in 2023, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said the court had heard victim impact letters describing the suffering of almost 200 victims, some of whom lost their life savings. The judge compared the letters to a “horror show.” (The ring’s top U.S. member, MD Azad, received nearly 16 years.)

As you might imagine, inmates are not supposed to have phones. Congress made possessing one in a federal prison a crime with the Cell Phone Contraband Act of 2010, but that hasn’t necessarily stopped the devices from getting in. The Justice Department’s inspector general found cell phones were the most common contraband recovered in federal prisons, with at least 8,700 seized between fiscal 2012 and 2014 alone. In September 2025, the Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously to advance a proposal that would let state and local prisons jam contraband phones.

Government impersonation losses are rising among seniors

The script used on the North Dakota woman, a supposed official promising to return money if she sent it first, is one of the fastest-growing scams aimed at older Americans. People 60 and older filed 201,266 complaints with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center in 2025 and reported $7.7 billion in losses, up 59% from the year before, according to the bureau’s 2025 annual report. The average loss was about $38,500. Ouch.

Government impersonation complaints from that age group nearly doubled to about 8,600, while losses climbed to $413 million from $208 million in 2024. Tech and customer support scams, the category behind Singh’s first conviction, cost older victims more than $1 billion. In North Dakota, residents 60 and older filed 251 complaints and reported nearly $6 million in losses. Those figures reflect only complaints filed with the FBI.

Moneywise has covered how these schemes play out, including a Maryland senior who lost nearly $600,000 after scammers convinced her she was an FBI “asset,” and Federal Trade Commission data showing impersonation scams have become far more common since 2020. According to the FTC, real government agencies don’t contact people out of the blue demanding money, and anyone who insists on payment by wire transfer, gift card, cryptocurrency or cash in the mail is running a scam.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the law enforcement arm of the Postal Service that handles mail fraud, investigated Singh’s latest case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Belinda Beek, who also prosecuted his first case, is handling it. U.S. District Judge George C. Hanks Jr. set sentencing for Dec. 21, when Singh faces up to five more years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000. He remains in custody.