{"id":22206,"date":"2025-06-28T16:10:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T16:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/22206\/"},"modified":"2025-06-28T16:10:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T16:10:14","slug":"construction-company-laundered-13m-from-nyc-in-school-repair-scheme-feds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/22206\/","title":{"rendered":"Construction company laundered $13M from NYC in school repair scheme: feds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged the owners of a construction company with defrauding the nation\u2019s largest school district<\/a> in connection with more than $13.5 million worth of repairs.<\/p>\n

Dalip Singh, 67, and Gurnirmal Singh, 64, of TEMCO Construction exploited undocumented immigrants without work authorization<\/a>, falsified payroll records and eventually tried to destroy the evidence, according to the complaint. Both Singhs, who are not related, were arrested Friday, prosecutors announced.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs alleged, the defendants lied to the [city\u2019s Education Department] about using undocumented workers, and deprived those workers \u2014 who toiled long days, school holidays and weekends \u2014 of proper compensation they had earned, so that they could line their pockets and bank accounts on New York City\u2019s tab,\u201d Joseph Nocella, Jr., United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

TEMCO Construction, formerly based in Jamaica, Queens, before moving to Long Island, provides masonry, scaffolding and construction services to the city\u2019s public schools.<\/p>\n

Between 2017 and this year, prosecutors say TEMCO used undocumented labor and paid their workers in cash less than the wage required by New York State labor law<\/a> and school system contracts \u2014 all while pocketing the difference.<\/p>\n

Dalip Singh covered up the scheme on payrolls submitted to the city\u2019s Education Department, according to the complaint. On those certified documents, he allegedly listed family members who didn\u2019t do the repairs, omitted some workers who were undocumented, and inflated the pay of others. In some cases,\u00a0employees had their wages docked on non-school-related jobs to offset legal pay, it read.<\/p>\n

The employers then \u201cattempted to conceal their fraud,\u201d prosecutors say, telling workers to lie to investigators about their wages and hide or destroy records.<\/p>\n

If found guilty of conspiring to commit wire fraud, the company\u2019s owners could face up to 20 years in prison, according to a press release announcing the charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York City Public Schools expects that employees of vendors be paid consistent with contractual requirements \u2014 anything less is unacceptable and would be considered a breach of contract,\u201d said schools spokeswoman Jenna Lyle, adding, \u201cWe cannot comment on a pending criminal action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attorney information was not readily available for Dalip Singh and Gurnirmal Singh, whose case remained under seal as of Friday.<\/p>\n

Originally Published: June 27, 2025 at 7:42 PM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged the owners of a construction company with defrauding the nation\u2019s largest school district…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,2451,3059,5295,1370,728,405,403,5294,50,5226,5225,5228,5227,5293,5321,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-22206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-city","10":"tag-county","11":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-local-news","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-new-york-county","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-newyork","19":"tag-newyorkcity","20":"tag-ny","21":"tag-nyc","22":"tag-nyc-crime","23":"tag-sub-county-region","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-united-states-of-america","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","28":"tag-us","29":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}