Ketan and Jheel Kamdar
Introduction
Ketan Kamdar, 61, and his daughter Jheel Kamdar, 30, both of Katy, Texas, have been charged by federal indictment with running a trade-based money laundering operation that used their Houston-area used-copier business, Jainam International, Inc., to wash fraud proceeds originating in India — buying used copiers, including from Connecticut companies, with criminally obtained funds and shipping them abroad to be resold for rupees. The two-count indictment, returned by a grand jury in Bridgeport on September 3, 2026 after the pair’s September 2 arrests, charges each with money laundering conspiracy, an offense carrying a maximum term of 20 years on each count, and seeks forfeiture of $4,184,295.22. Both are free on bond pending further proceedings.
Background Information
Trade-based money laundering, as the Justice Department explains it, is a method in which criminals use the proceeds of illegal activity to purchase goods in one country, ship the goods to another, and resell them there for local currency — the movement of goods serving chiefly as the vehicle for moving money. The indictment alleges that Ketan Kamdar, a citizen of India, was the majority owner of Jainam International, a used copier wholesaler based in Houston, and that he and his daughter were both listed in various corporate filings and other documents as President of the company.
Since approximately 2023, the Kamdars allegedly conspired with individuals based in India to launder the proceeds of fraud schemes through the business: purchasing used copiers, including from companies based in Connecticut, with fraudulently obtained funds received from their Indian co-conspirators, shipping the copiers to Texas and then to India, and selling them there to pay the India-based conspirators in rupees. To disguise the flows, the indictment alleges, they fabricated invoices reflecting false sales of items they did not sell — misrepresenting that the copiers had been bought by companies in Singapore and India controlled by the Kamdar family.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Charged, not convicted. The charges are allegations in an indictment. An indictment is not evidence of guilt, and each defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
The indictment’s showcase allegation shows the machinery end to end. In June 2024, a Massachusetts resident was contacted by a co-conspirator of the Kamdars who claimed to be from the Social Security Administration and told the victim they had been charged with a crime. To resolve the purported charges, the victim withdrew approximately $248,000 from a retirement account and, as instructed, deposited it into five different bank accounts — including more than $48,000 into an account held in the name of Jainam International. The company then accounted for that money through fabricated invoices as payment for used copiers supposedly sold by a company in India controlled by Ketan Kamdar, closing the loop between an impersonation scam’s proceeds and the copier trade.
Both Kamdars were arrested on federal criminal complaints on September 2, 2026, and the grand jury in Bridgeport returned the indictment the next day, charging each with two counts of money laundering conspiracy and seeking forfeiture of $4,184,295.22. Ketan Kamdar appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge S. Dave Vatti, pleaded not guilty, and was released on a $1.5 million bond; Jheel Kamdar was arraigned on September 30, 2026, and is released on a $100,000 bond.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The case was announced in late October 2026 by the District of Connecticut under its Homeland Security Task Force docket, with U.S. Attorney David Sullivan stressing that an indictment is not evidence of guilt and that each defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. The investigation spans five agencies — the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security Office of Export Enforcement, the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, IRS Criminal Investigation, and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service — and the case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Rahul Kale, Konstantin Lantsman, and Stephanie T. Levick.
The consequences so far are the arrests, the two-count indictment, the $4.18 million forfeiture demand against the business’s alleged laundering proceeds, and the bonds — $1.5 million for the father, $100,000 for the daughter — that will hold them pending the case’s outcome. No trial date has been announced.
Current Status
The Kamdars have been charged but not tried. Ketan Kamdar has pleaded not guilty before Magistrate Judge Vatti and is released on a $1.5 million bond; Jheel Kamdar was arraigned September 30, 2026 and is released on a $100,000 bond. Each faces two counts of money laundering conspiracy, with a maximum term of 20 years on each count. The indictment’s allegations — the copier pipeline from Connecticut and Texas to India, the fabricated invoices to family-controlled companies in Singapore and India, and the June 2024 Social Security impersonation proceeds — remain to be tested in court.
Impact on Their Career/Life
The indictment strikes directly at the family business: Jainam International, the used-copier wholesaler both Kamdars publicly headed, is alleged in court documents to be the laundering vehicle itself, its invoicing and its India shipments recast as the plumbing of a fraud-proceeds pipeline. If the charges are proven, each faces up to 40 years across the two counts, and the government has already marked $4,184,295.22 for forfeiture. Even at the charging stage, the operation that supported the family — a Houston-area wholesaler with ties to copier sellers in Connecticut — now answers to a five-agency federal investigation and a Homeland Security Task Force prosecution that treats the company’s ordinary trade as the crime.
Sources
- U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Connecticut, “Homeland Security Task Force Investigation: Two Texas Residents Charged with Offenses Stemming from Trade-Based Money Laundering Scheme” — source