Sammy and Sunita Mukherjee, an illegal immigrant couple from Plano, Texas, face first-degree felony theft charges after the FBI uncovered a $4 million scam targeting over 100 investors. By forging documents, securing a fraudulent PPP loan, and impersonating government agencies during public galas, they deceived victims while Sammy sought asylum despite outstanding fraud warrants in India. This case suggests the exposed amount is merely a fraction of their total illicit gains, highlighting how sophisticated fraud networks exploit cultural events to mask massive financial theft from American citizens. [Automatically generated summary]
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The $4 Million Plano Fraud00:07:23
Now we move to a story the CBS News Texas I team first uncovered nearly a year ago.
It's about a plano man who's in ICE custody as he and his wife now face felony theft charges.
It goes deeper.
The FBI says bank records reveal more than 100 potential victims and tonight the lead detective in this case is telling investigative reporter Brian New he believes this is the most elaborate and prolific fraud case he's ever encountered.
They were more than just performers.
Sammy Mukherjee and his wife Sunita lit up stages across North Texas with their voices and lit up social circles with their charm.
Boys and girls, please welcome Sammy and Gotami.
But Fed say behind the curtain of applause was a different kind of performance.
One that caught the attention of dozens of investors.
One that investigators now say was a performance of deceit.
They will make you believe they are very successful business people, but they will take every single penny you have.
These six are just a fraction of what the FBI says could be more than 100 investors who gave the Mukherjee's money for real estate deals.
But when dividend checks bounced, suspicion set in.
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Yeah, so this guy's an illegal immigrant.
He's in ICE custody right now.
This dude pulled off a $4 million fraud against American citizens.
Wow.
You know how Democrats always say immigrants commit less fraud in the country than American citizens.
Which is true, but they're lying by omission.
It's because they're the minority of our population.
Yeah.
Of course they're going to commit less crime and fraud.
It's of course the only makeup of what?
How much?
Yeah, yeah, less than 10% in total.
But if you look at individual cases, per capita, yeah.
Oh, I guarantee you they commit more fraud.
Oh, of course they do.
Of course they do.
And the story began to unravel.
To be very frank, now looking back, we should have been much more wiser in terms of ASTI questions, but we never thought someone would go to that extent.
When they reported it to police, most departments told them the same thing.
It was a civil matter.
There was nothing they could do to help.
But inside a back office at the Ulis Police Department, one detective saw things differently and began what turned out to be nearly a two-year-long investigation.
As I got into the case.
Took a white man to uncover it.
He's probably got a bunch of DEI hires all around him.
And he was the only one to uncover it.
Right.
And dug into it, we realized that this was a lot larger than what initially was reported.
What caught Detective Brian Brennan's attention were the documents the Mukherjee's gave their investors.
He says letterheads had been tampered with, signatures were forged.
Emails, he says, completely fabricated.
Even bank statements, he alleges, had been altered.
So all of these documents that he provided, the contracts, the invoices, the emails, they were all fake.
All fake.
All fake.
The level of counterfeit documents and as many as that he created put a lot of effort.
I mean, it also had to be a full-time job for him to do that.
At this point, Brennan brought in the FBI.
Their forensics accounting team dug into Mukherjee's bank records, and they say they found victims' losses totaled more than $4 million, with 20 confirmed victims and more than 100 potential victims.
But the alleged deception didn't stop there.
According to the arrest warrant, the Mukherjee's used a fake company with made-up employees to submit to the Small Business Administration for a PPP loan.
Money was also found in the Mukherjee's bank account that had come from defrauding elderly folks into believing that they had warrants out for their arrest.
Brennan said.
I don't know how many times I've got phone calls from telemarketers and they got this Indian accent and they're trying to scam me.
A lot of times they do social security.
They act like they call from the Social Security Administration.
Right, right, right.
And I had Mimik Chris, our other friend, he got scammed by him.
I said, you stupid.
Your red flag should have went off when you heard a Middle Eastern person.
Well, not a Middle Eastern person, an Indian talking to you.
Yeah, my wife grabbed me one day.
Say, hey, man, this dude's saying I owed $10,000 to RS, so they're going to take me to jail.
I said, hello, this is Mr. Hodger.
Then the accent.
I said, listen here, you damn used camouselles.
Stop calling my house.
I'm not buying it.
Yeah.
Burn in hell.
Yeah.
Says in his more than two decades working white-collar crime, he has never seen anything like this.
In 23 years, he's probably the most prolific as far as like tentacles going in all different directions, fraud from multiple different things.
As investigators closed in on the Mukherjee's, the Plano couple continued to seek out the spotlight.
In May, as highlighted on Sunita's Facebook page, the Mukherjee's headlined a charity gala in Plano, an event that featured a legendary Bollywood star from India.
Among the guests of honor, the mayor of Plano.
That's crazy.
Look at him smiling.
The event was hosted by...
Go back to that picture.
You know how when you look at someone taking a picture, you can tell who's taking the picture and with who.
Yeah, who wants the picture?
Yeah, who wants the picture in this photo out right here?
It looks like the mayor.
He's all excited.
Look at her.
The mayor of Plano.
The event was hosted by a newly formed nonprofit, the Indian Traditions and Cultural Society of North America.
Tax records revealed that nonprofit traces back to this Plano home, the very home of Sammy and Sunita Mukherjee.
Just weeks later, he was here where the couple was arrested.
Sammy and Sunita Mukherjee both were charged with first-degree felony theft, a charge that could land them in prison from five to 99 years.
Investigators say Sammy Mukherjee also has outstanding fraud warrants in India.
That's crazy.
He's currently being held at a nice detention facility south of Fort Worth.
Investigators told us the couple had come to the U.S. from India seeking asylum.
They're seeking asylum from what?
They wanted for crimes in India, defrauding people.
I'm sick and asylum.
Federal records do not indicate their current legal status.
The couple's next court hearing for their felony theft charges is...
It said it doesn't show their current legal status, but it showed they're in custody.
Do you think they're here in the country legally?
Sammy Mukherjee's Legal Status00:00:50
Of course not.
Scheduled for September.
Nicole, when we last spoke with Sammy Mukherjee after our investigation last year, he denied all the allegations and told us he was the real victim, a victim of a coordinated effort by a group of people who he says are jealous of him and his wife.
That's insane.
They're trying to send him to jail for 99 years because they're jealous of him.
Yeah, so he ripped off, they say, $4 million in fraud, but that's what they've uncovered.
Yeah.
They probably only found 30% of what they've done.
Right.
Them dudes probably got gold bricks somewhere.
Got a stash somewhere.
I've been looking at their show Animal Kingdom.
I guarantee they got a bunch of money stashed somewhere.