A federal grand jury in Charlotte has indicted a naturalized U.S. citizen from Bhutan on naturalization fraud charges, tied to his failure to disclose sexual crimes against a child before he became a citizen. His name is Sha Bahadur Ghaley, and he’s 42.
U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson for the Western District of North Carolina announced the indictment. Ghaley is already serving a state prison sentence connected to the underlying crimes.
The Crimes That Started It All
According to allegations in the indictment, Ghaley committed sexual crimes against a child in Charlotte between 2010 and 2014. He later pleaded guilty in North Carolina state court in February 2024 to three counts of Taking Indecent Liberties with a Child. That plea resulted in a state prison sentence of 32 to 58 months, along with a 30-year sex offender registration requirement.
How the Citizenship Fraud Allegedly Happened
Here’s where the federal case comes in. The indictment alleges that after committing those crimes, Ghaley went on to fraudulently obtain his U.S. citizenship by lying during the naturalization process. On December 4, 2017, he submitted an application for naturalization to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Prosecutors say Ghaley answered “No” to application questions asking whether he had ever committed a crime or offense for which he hadn’t been arrested. At the time he applied, he hadn’t yet been arrested for the crimes against the child, so the indictment alleges he specifically failed to admit that he had knowingly committed sexual acts with a child before applying for citizenship.
Part of a Bigger Federal Program
This case ties back to something called Operation False Haven, a federal initiative launched by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division back in late 2019. The program works by cross-referencing state sex offender and criminal databases against historical naturalization records, specifically to catch people who concealed disqualifying crimes when they took the citizenship oath.
It’s not the only case to come out of that effort in North Carolina recently either. In the Eastern District of North Carolina, federal prosecutors used the same program to revoke the citizenship of a Salvadoran national, Isidro Arcenio Alvarado, after he admitted concealing child sex crimes during his 2022 naturalization interview.
Officials React
U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson framed the case pretty directly, saying it’s normally a proud day when someone becomes a naturalized citizen, but that people who commit fraud to cheat their way into citizenship take that opportunity away from someone else, and that doing so is a federal crime his office will hold people accountable for.
ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Atlanta Field Office Director LaDeon Francis added that naturalization fraud threatens the integrity of the immigration system and the trust placed in people who pursue citizenship the right way.
Where the Case Stands
It’s not yet clear whether Ghaley’s federal trial will move forward before or after he finishes his current state prison sentence. Right now, the federal naturalization fraud charge remains an allegation, and Ghaley is presumed innocent unless the government proves its case in court.
There are also reportedly three separate civil denaturalization complaints connected to similar cases, though the identities and case numbers behind those haven’t been made public yet.