For nearly two years, packages from London’s famed Harrod’s department store kept arriving at Jaivin Raj Karnani’s McLean home, each containing luxury watches with high-end labels like Rolex, Moser, Oris, Chanel, federal prosecutors say.
But each time a watch was delivered, Karnani claimed the jewelry never arrived and launched disputes with American Express or the department store. In all, the watch price tags totaled more than $1.2 million between late 2022 and June 2024.
On Thursday, Karnani was sentenced to a year and nine months in prison for mail fraud, after federal authorities found he had kept the watches and attempted to resell them in other states for profit, the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria said.
Karani entered a plea agreement with the government last fall, admitting to the scheme, court records show.
“After the luxury watches arrived, Karnani would initiate a dispute with American Express in an attempt to have the charges for the watches removed from his statement and balances due, while Karnani actually had received the watches and intended to sell them for money,” the court documents state.
Karnani ordered the items using his own name as well as the aliases of “Quinn Bash” and “Steve Johnson,” prosecutors said.
Court records show he used four American Express accounts for the transactions, two under his name and two under his mother’s name.
The false disputes cost American Express more than $850,000 in losses and more than $425,000 to Harrods, according to prosecutors.
Karnani must forfeit the amount discharged by the companies and 23 luxury watches authorities seized from McLean home, prosecutors said.
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