A 25-year-old Indian student pursuing her Master’s degree at Indiana University Bloomington fell victim to a scam by fraudsters posing as US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Shreya Bedi, who came to the United States on an F-1 visa in 2022, lost $5,000 to the fake officials who claimed she violated immigration rules.
The scam occurred on May 29, when Bedi received a phone call from someone claiming to be an ICE officer. “He gave me his name and badge number and told me to verify his office details by going to ice.gov and looking up the office in Maryland. I could confirm it was the same phone number he was calling from,” she said.
Soon after, she received another call from a person pretending to be an Olympia Police Department officer. The scammers warned Shreya Bedi about an arrest warrant in her name and told her not to disconnect the call, claiming they were monitoring her phone.
Shreya Bedi was under Digital Arrest for Three Hours
“I felt completely trapped because they kept me on the phone for three hours straight, repeatedly warning me that hanging up or contacting anyone would violate my case and make things worse. I was too scared to risk it,” Bedi recalled.
The scammers possessed detailed personal information about her, including her academic background, her Indian hometown, and details of her U.S. entry. “They had so many of my details that only official agencies would know,” she said.
The fraudsters convinced her to buy $5,000 worth of Apple and Target gift cards as a form of “bond payment” to avoid arrest and deportation. She shared the card details over the phone, and the scammers told her that a police officer would visit the next day to collect the cards and bond papers. No one showed up.
A Wake-Up Call for International Students
Bedi said, “I’m living alone in the U.S. with no family support. This money was supposed to help me stay afloat and plan my future here. It completely derailed my plans. This affects everything—my ability to save money, my timeline for either returning to India or applying for an H1B visa.”
She believes international students remain vulnerable due to their lack of understanding of how American systems function. “I feel embarrassed that I fell for this, but I want others to learn from my mistake,” she added.
Shreya Bedi has since started a GoFundMe campaign to recover the lost funds and has been actively warning others. “You always have the right to hang up and call a lawyer; government agencies rarely call you directly; they send official mail,” she said. “No legitimate government agency will ever ask for gift cards, bank details, or your Social Security number over the phone. If someone asks for any of these things, it’s a scam.”
Her experience comes at a time when reports of impersonators claiming to be ICE agents are rising across the U.S. On June 5, ICE detained over 2,200 individuals in a single day, further stoking fear in migrant communities, according to NBC News.
