GUILTY PLEAS ENTERED ON FALSE ASYLUM CHARGES

The United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, (ICE) and IRS Criminal Investigation announced that Boota Singh Basi and Kashmir Singh Malhi each pled guilty on October 15, to conspiracy to make false statements under oath.  Both had faced charges of filing fraudulent applications for asylum with the former Immigration and Naturalization Service now known as U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services now known U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.  Both also pled guilty to conspiracy to obstruct, influence and impede an official proceeding in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371.  Basi also pled guilty to one count of promoting a specified unlawful activity by laundering monetary instruments, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1956(a)(1)(A). 

Basi, 24, and Malhi, 51, both of Modesto, California, were arrested by ICE agents April 18, 2003, when their residence was searched for evidence.  They remain in custody.  Basi was initially arrested on January 21, 2003, and charged with conspiracy to make false statements under oath with respect to applications for asylum.  He was released on bail on January 27, 2003.  Later, federal investigators obtained additional arrest warrants charging the two with obstructing justice by contacting asylum applicants and attempting to prevent their cooperation with the investigators.  A search warrant for the Modesto residence was also obtained and served by ICE and Internal Revenue Service special agents. 

According to documents filed with the court, Basi operated an immigration consultant business at 384 Jackson Street, Suite 9, Hayward, CA and at 1427 Standiford Avenue, Suite C, Modesto, CA.  Malhi assisted him in these businesses.  Beginning in 2002, possibly earlier, and continuing until early 2003, the defendants solicited clients, primarily Indian nationals living in New York, New Jersey and other states, with a scheme for obtaining asylum from the asylum office in San Francisco.  After receiving the agreed-upon fee, or some part of it, Basi and Malhi prepared asylum forms containing materially false information and prepared false stories for the applicants to tell the asylum officers and immigration judges.  They also provided the applicants with lists of false documents to obtain from India, and rehearsed the applicants in learning their false stories to be told during the asylum interviews. 

According to their plea agreements, Basi and Malhi made an agreement to obstruct the investigation after Basi was initially arrested in January 2003. This agreement, according to documents on file in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, involved contacting clients of their offices and telling them not to appear at their asylum interviews.  The defendants also agreed to request that applicants prepare and send them the false stories that the defendants had created.  Their plan was to have Basi provide these false documents, in the client's own handwriting, to Basi's then-attorney to support a defense that both Basi and Malhi had not known the stories were false.

Basi also pled guilty to promoting the scheme by conducting financial transactions involving property received from their unlawful activity. Basi admitted that he withdrew checks totaling $60,154.00 from a Guaranty Bank account as payments for rent, travel, telephone, advertising and office expenses, which represented proceeds of wire fraud in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343, with the intent to promote this illegal activity.

The sentencing of Basi and Malhi is scheduled for January 7, 2004 at 1:30 p.m. before U.S. District Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton in San Francisco.  The maximum statutory penalty for each of the counts in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 is 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.  The maximum statutory penalty for the count in violation of 18 U.S.C. §1956(a)(1)(A)(i) is 20 years in prison and a fine of $500,000.  However, the actual sentence will be dictated by the federal sentencing guidelines, which take into account a number of factors, and will be imposed in the discretion of the court.

According to U.S. Attorney Kevin J. Ryan, "Abuse of political asylum claims has become  a significant problem in San Francisco.  With the cooperation of the federal investigative agencies, we have adopted e have adopted the task force approach to the investigation of fraudulent asylum applications, and this office will continue to aggressively investigate and prosecute these cases."

"It is interesting to note that after knowledge of the arrest of Basi and Malhi was publicized, applications for asylum from natives of the five countries they served, filed for hearing in the San Francisco Asylum Office, dropped from approximately 300 per month to approximately 60 per month.  While no immigrant need fear repercussions from the filing of any truthful application to Citizenship and Immigration Services, we believe that the precipitous drop in applications reflects the substantial number of fraudulent applications which previously were being submitted."  

 "Asylum provides a safe haven for those individuals who demonstrate just fear of persecution, or for their very lives", said Charles O. Simonson, ICE Special Agent- in-Charge in San Francisco.  "The right to live permanently in the United States is a privilege, and we will do everything in our power to keep out those who think they can flout this process."

The prosecution is the result of a six-month investigation by agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation.  U.S. Attorney Ryan said that the San Francisco Asylum Office and CIS provided essential assistance in the investigation.  Assistant US Attorney William I. Shockley prosecuted the case for the United States, with the assistance of legal technician Elaine McCoy.