In the realm of legal intricacies, an Indian artisan faces indictment for orchestrating the illicit evasion of customs duties on a multi-million-dollar influx of jewelry into the United States. Monishkumar Kirankumar Doshi Shah, a 39-year-old luminary with roots spanning Mumbai and New Jersey, found himself under arrest over the weekend. His appearance before US Magistrate Judge Andr M Espinosa in Newark’s federal court unfolded on February 26.

Shah, also known as “Monish Doshi Shah,” secured release on a USD 100,000 bond, coupled with home detention and location monitoring. The charges lodged against him comprise one count of conspiring to commit wire fraud and another count of operating and abetting an unlicensed money-transmitting business.

Documents reveal that from January 2015 to September 2023, Shah masterminded a stratagem to elude duties on jewelry shipments from Turkey and India to the US. His modus operandi involved dispatching or instructing accomplices to dispatch goods from Turkey or India – subject to a nominal 5.5 percent duty if sent directly to the US – to one of Shah’s enterprises in South Korea.

Prosecutors assert that Shah’s collaborators in South Korea undertook the alteration of jewelry labels, affirming their origin as South Korea rather than Turkey or India. Subsequently, these adorned pieces were dispatched to Shah or his US clientele, thereby circumventing customs duties unlawfully. Shah was also implicated in fabricating invoices and packing lists, guiding his customers to produce deceptive documents suggesting purchases from Turkey or India through his South Korean ventures.

Throughout the scheming period, Shah purportedly funneled millions of dollars’ worth of jewelry from South Korea to the US. Operating from July 2020 to November 2021, Shah oversaw various ostensible jewelry enterprises in New York City’s Diamond District, such as MKore LLC (MKore), MKore USA Inc. (MKore USA), and Vruman Corp (Vruman).

These entities served as conduits for myriad illegal financial transactions, encompassing the conversion of cash into checks or wire transfers. Shah and his collaborators collected cash from clients, utilizing affiliated jewelry companies in the Diamond District to metamorphose the cash into wire transfers or checks.

According to legal documents, Shah and his co-conspirators, at times, maneuvered more than a million dollars in cash in a singular day. They levied fees for their services, yet none of Shah’s or his associates’ companies were duly registered as money-transmitting entities with New York, New Jersey, or the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.