Four sentenced in massive bank fraud scheme
Three suburban men and one former suburban resident were sentenced to prison and ordered to repay millions of dollars after pleading guilty to bank fraud charges.
Charnpal Ghuman, 39, of Palatine, and Aga Khan, 39, of Bloomingdale, were business partners in a gas station-flipping scheme where they sold the operations to individuals they knew were not qualified for loans, prosecutors said.
The pair conspired with a loan officer to submit false applications and an accountant helped supply fake tax returns to garner more than $40 million in loans from 2006 to 2009. The four were indicted in 2013 after the bank had lost millions on the loans.
Ghuman was sentenced to five years and six months in prison. He was also fined $2 million.
Khan was sentenced to three years in prison. He was fined $1 million.
Akash Brahmbhatt, 44, a former Naperville resident who now lives in Texas, was the loan officer. He was sentenced to three years in prison and fined $1 million.
Shital Mehta, 53, of Elk Grove Village, was the accountant who supplied phony tax returns. He was sentenced to a year and a day in prison and fined $500,000.
Additionally, Ghuman, Khan and Brahmbhatt were ordered to split a restitution cost of $10.3 million to Brahmbhatt's former employer.