Chicago Man Who Staged Fake Armed Robberies For $30K Gets Two Years After Botched Job Turns Deadly

A federal judge in Chicago sentenced Parth Nayi, 29, of Woodridge, to two years in prison and a $50,000 fine on Thursday for organizing staged armed robberies so the people “robbed” could apply for ‘U visas’ (which are reserved for crime victims who help police), according to the DOJ. Nayi pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit visa fraud.

The government says migrants paid Nayi between $5,000 and $30,000 for each fake robbery. He hired the robbers, coached the fake victims on how to report the crime to police, and then helped them apply for the visa, which is open to victims of certain crimes who cooperate with law enforcement and can lead to permanent residence. The staged holdups hit restaurants, liquor stores, gas stations and coffee shops.

One of them went wrong. On July 13, 2023, a “robbery crew” entered Bucktown Food & Liquor in Chicago, and one of the robbers accidentally fired his gun, shooting a 26-year-old clerk in the abdomen, according to CWB Chicago. The clerk survived. The shooting is what began to unravel the operation.

The size of it is still unclear. CWB Chicago identified more than 100 people who bought the service, most of them of Latin and South American origin, but the Justice Department says it believes “thousands of individuals who posed as victims” were involved. When prosecutors indicted six people in May 2024, the charges covered at least 16 staged robberies between December 2022 and January 2024. Sentencing coverage now describes hundreds.

Two years is well under the five-year maximum on the conspiracy charge Nayi pleaded to. His co-defendant Kewon Young pleaded guilty in January, and three others have been sentenced to anything from probation to time served, according to Hoodline, which cited the Chicago Tribune. Another defendant, Patel, vanished on the third day of his trial; Judge Mary Rowland let it proceed without him and the jury convicted him of making a false statement on a U-visa application. His sentencing is set for Nov. 30.

The U visa is capped at 10,000 principal approvals a year, and Sen. Tom Cotton’s April letter to the Department of Homeland Security says more than 400,000 petitions were pending as of June 2025. Cotton asked DHS to investigate reports that criminal organizations stage fake crimes so fraudsters can qualify, and a House bill’s sponsor cites another case in which 10 foreign nationals were indicted by April 10 over staged armed robberies of convenience store clerks. A Massachusetts man was sentenced in 2025 for staging at least 18 robberies, Hoodline noted.

Government audits point to a gap in oversight. A DHS inspector general found that USCIS does not track how many U visa fraud referrals end in prosecution, and that visas granted exceeded the cap in some years between 2010 and 2020. A former USCIS director and advocates say the backlog comes from Congress’s cap, not fraud. 

Immigration attorney Xavier Borjas, speaking to WBBM-TV in 2024, said the abuse hurts real victims: “there are so many people that unfortunately do qualify [for U visas] and have been victims of these crimes” who should get relief.