A federal judge sentenced a Herndon, Va., man to 10 years in prison for illegally sending more than $6 million to Pakistan and other countries. Mohammad Bajwa, a 40-year-old Pakistani national, was sentenced to prison for 10 years and ordered to give up his home in Herndon, Virginia and $3.5 million.
Mohammad Bajwa was convicted by a federal grand jury in October pursuant to the U.S. Patriot Act that requires money transmitters to obtain the required state license and register with FinCEN, an agency of the US Treasury, before engaging in the money transmission business. Testimony showed that Mohammad Bajwa operated a money transmission business in Virginia before and after March 2002 when the Virginia Bureau of Financial Institutions denied the money transmission application of Hashim Enterprises, Inc., a company owned and managed by Bajwa. The prosecution produced evidence connecting Bajwa to six million dollars he helped people wire to Pakistan and other countries from Virginia residents. He was also convicted of wire fraud connected to a refinancing application he filed on a mortgage.
Prosecutors said Bajwa collected money from people in Virginia and then wired it to overseas banks. His brother in Pakistan then collected the money and distributed it to its recipients. Prosecutors said Bajwa also illegally wired money to several other countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Japan, India, China, Taiwan, and Holland.
In April, Bajwa was convicted of immigration fraud and was later sentenced to two years in prison.
Bajwa’s conviction for operating without a state money transmission license is the third handed down by Virginia juries in Northern Virginia in 2005. A current list of licensed money transmitters can be found in the Bureau of Financial Institutions’ web site at www.scc.virginia.gov/division/banking.