DENVER - Three men, formerly of Wray, Colorado, were indicted in a government official impersonation scheme, the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado announced Wednesday. 

James Albert Witte, 68, Jason Lee Henderson, 36, and Indian national Dhruv Jani, 39, were charged with money laundering and conspiring to commit money laundering. 

They're accused of contacting U.S. citizens by phone and misrepresenting themselves as federal law enforcement agents from January 2020 - April 2021. The trio coerced 54 victims into sending a total of $7.5 million by impersonating federal law enforcement agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of the Treasury, or the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. 

The conspirators told victims their identities had been connected to a criminal incident and they would be arrested or deported from the United States if they didn't pay the “Government” large sums of money. The victims were instructed to withdraw cash from their bank accounts and mail the cash to various addresses, which turned out to be Walgreens stores in northeastern Colorado.

Jani is accused of paying Witte and Henderson to use fake identification cards to pick up the packages from the Walgreens stores. Of the $7.5 million stolen from the victims, $1.5 million in cash was mailed to Colorado. 

Jani is also accused of threatening to kill his estranged wife in Colorado with his "own hands" after she filed for divorce and withdrew her support for his green card. 

Jani and Henderson made their initial appearances on July 26. Witte made his initial appearance on July 27. 

A search of online public records shows Witte and Henderson lived on the same block of Grant Street in Wray at the same time.

This investigation was conducted jointly with investigators from the Social Security Administration (SSA) Office of Inspector General (OIG), United States Postal Inspection Service, Department of Homeland Security-OIG, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and the Sterling, Colo. Police Department. The District Attorney for the 13th Judicial District has also provided assistance.