Shah pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a Hawaii gold-bar elder-fraud scheme.

A guilty plea is a conviction on the count that was admitted. It is not a sentence. Shah admitted he made $25,000 to $30,000 from about 10 gold pickups from elderly victims and that he was in Hawaii to collect about 100 ounces of gold. Federal prosecutors are seeking $162,458 in forfeiture. Court papers say removal and deportation are virtually certain. Exposure of up to 20 years is a statutory ceiling, not the January sentence.

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported Friday, Oct. 2, 2026, that Harsh Fojalal Shah, 25, pleaded guilty Sept. 25 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in an international fraud scheme that conned an 80-year-old Kaneohe woman into giving him $137,458 in gold bars she bought with her life savings. Sentencing is set for Jan. 12. Under the plea agreement, prosecutors dropped four wire-fraud counts. A plea is a conviction on the admitted conspiracy count. It is not the prison term until the court sentences him.

According to the Star-Advertiser's account of court records, the scheme used a fake Apple Support message saying the victim's phone had been hacked, then a caller posing as law enforcement from a fraud center in Gujarat, India, pressured her to buy gold and turn it over to a courier. The woman later liquidated her IRA and bought another $429,608 in gold before she told Honolulu police and Homeland Security Investigations; law enforcement intervened and stopped that further loss. Shah admitted that between February and May he made $25,000 to $30,000 from about 10 pickups of gold packages from elderly victims, and that he was reimbursed for flights, hotels, and sometimes rental cars.

Prosecutors are seeking $162,458 in forfeiture. Court documents say it is inevitable and a virtual certainty that Shah, a citizen of India, will be removed and deported. He faces up to 20 years in federal prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and supervised release; those figures are statutory exposure. Alleged co-conspirator Leonard Lawrence, also known as Liu Yang, pleaded guilty to wire fraud Sept. 2 in a related Montana gold-bar case and also faces up to 20 years. Hawaii News Now previously reported Shah's July 20 Honolulu arrest on a criminal complaint charging conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The Oct. 2 coverage is of the guilty plea, not a new arrest. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.