WORCESTER – As a victim who emptied three savings accounts looked on in federal court Wednesday, a former Worcester man admitted his part in an India-based IRS scheme that bilked local residents out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Ashokkumar “Andy” Patel, a 30-year-old Indian citizen who will face deportation proceedings after his sentence, pleaded guilty to felony charges related to allegations he helped steal nearly $700,000 in a large calling scheme aimed at grabbing cash from terrified victims as quickly as possible.

Mr. Patel, of Schaumburg, Illinois, formerly lived on Southwest Cutoff in Worcester, court papers show, and multiple victims of his racket’s fraud were from the area.

One victim, a senior citizen from Shrewsbury, rocked back and forth gently on a court bench Wednesday as Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle L. Dineen Jerrett described her ordeal.

The prosecutor said the woman, a disabled and retired doctor, was 65 when she received a call from a person purporting to be a government attorney in December 2013.

The “attorney” advised the woman she owed taxes and would be arrested within the hour unless she paid legal fees, Ms. Dineen Jerrett said. The woman thought the caller was legitimate after they named her married name, maiden name, birthday, address and Social Security number.

The woman drove to the store and bought 26 prepaid cards, Ms. Dineen Jerrett said, staying on the phone the whole time as ordered and handing over the serial numbers to the caller.

Authorities have said the woman, who declined to comment after the hearing, cried into the phone in the midst of buying dozens of store cards, saying her disability caused her pain.

But the schemers, who the FBI has said used “magicJack” devices to make it appear they were calling from the IRS, kept calling time and again, getting the woman to turn over nearly $85,000 in less than two months.

In the process, the woman liquidated three saving accounts and took out a $10,000 home equity loan, Ms. Dineen Jerrett said.

A second victim, a 65-year-old woman from Worcester, was bilked out of nearly $45,000 after purchasing 63 prepaid cards in three days, with the scammers at one point telling her she couldn’t tell anyone about whom she was speaking with “because of the Patriot Act.”

Mr. Patel is not alleged to have made the calls, but was rather, the prosecutor said, a “runner” for the conspiracy who helped transfer the money to bank accounts he and others controlled.

After getting people to buy prepaid cards and acquiring the cards’ serial numbers, the schemers used the serial numbers to transfer cash as quickly as possible onto “reloadable debit cards.”

By keeping people on the phone and quickly making the transfers, the schemers ensured they could get the cash in their possession before their victims had a chance to realize they’d been tricked and tried to recoup the money, the government said.

The schemers, who opened reloadable debit cards in the names of people who didn’t appear connected to the scheme, would then use the debit cards to wire money to bank accounts, some of which ended up overseas.

Ms. Dineen Jerrett said that Mr. Patel’s role was to buy the debit cards and provide their serial numbers to the callers so they could load the ill-gotten cash onto them, and then to purchase the money orders that were used to transfer cash into bank accounts.

At least one of the debit cards was bought at a Dollar Tree in Worcester, Ms. Dineen Jerrett said, and the Northboro Walmart was used to make some of the wire transfers.

Ms. Dineen Jerrett said Mr. Patel deposited at least $45,000 in money orders into his own bank account from 2013 to 2015.

Authorities have said they believe Mr. Patel was working at a Subway on Grafton Street over that period of time. In all, they said they identified more than $145,000 in his bank account that is not attributable to his job at Subway or driving for ride-hailing services.

Ms. Dineen Jerrett on Wednesday pegged the total loss amount attributed to Mr. Patel at about $692,000, a figure she said could grow.

One of Mr. Patel’s two court-appointed lawyers, W. Jamiel Allen, told Judge Timothy S. Hillman Wednesday he anticipates contesting the latter figure at sentencing.

Mr. Patel appears to be the only person publicly charged in what Ms. Dineen Jerrett called a “widespread and sophisticated fraud scheme” centered on call centers in India.

Investigators were drawn to Mr. Patel after the FBI learned his cellphone was used to make an inquiry on a debit card that was used in the scheme.

Mr. Patel, who spoke with an accent that led the judge to ask him to repeat himself several times, was released after the hearing to go back to his home in Illinois.

Court documents show he has complied with the terms of his 2017 pretrial release, which included turning over his passport. He has been granted permission over the past several years to travel with his family to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and Denver, Colorado.

Court records show that prosecutors have turned over more than 65,000 documents to Mr. Patel’s lawyers in that timeframe, with Magistrate Judge David H. Hennessy writing in December 2018 that discussions on a plea before the indictment “were not successful.”

The matter was scheduled for trial in July until Mr. Patel requested a change-of-plea hearing. He has not reached a plea deal with the government.

Mr. Patel faces a maximum of 80 years in prison and fines of over $1 million on four felony counts – two for wire fraud and one each for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.

He will be subject to deportation proceedings following any sentence. The guideline sentence for his crime is 63 to and 78 months in prison, Ms. Dineen Jerrett told the judge.

Mr. Patel is scheduled for sentencing in September.