Call Centres Near Mumbai Extorted Crores From Americans

Crime branch conducted a massive raid with 200 policemen at three `bogus’ call centres operating from near Mumbai. While the investigation is still on and the suspected kingpin is still on the run, sources claim that the money trail could extend up to Ahmedabad and Pune.The Thane crime branch acted on tip-offs about bogus call centres running at Mira Road. The call centres were allegedly running a fake tax collection racket where they used to call American citizens to siphon off money from them.

The police raid went on for almost 12 hours and seized material worth Rs 1 crore, including 800 hard disks. They have also arrested eight people, who they believe were managing the entire scam. Param Bir Singh, Commissioner, Thane police, said, “They used to call American citizens posing as Internal Revenue System employees. Using fake IDs, they would threaten the victims with legal action. Then they used to give them an easy way out, which was to pay a certain amount to them immediately as surety. The money was transferred using cash cards.” As per reports, the racket allegedly had connections outside the country. There were a total of nine call centres running in the three premises. More than 700 employees were involved in the process and according to the police, the daily turnover was around Rs 1.5 crore. “Only 10 per cent of their calls used to be successful, but that fetched them cash,“ Singh said.

The caller used a software to spoof and replicate his number with the local IRS numbers. They would then call the American citizens who were told that the IRS had found some tax-evading on their part and that the local police would arrest them if they were to disconnect. Then, after threatening them with legal action, the caller used to tell them of a way out -these victims were asked to purchase cash cards of iTunes, Walmart, Target and other such stores and they had to reveal the 16-digit code on the cards, which was relayed to the caller’s counterpart in America, who in turn used to credit the amount to his account. After deducting a 30 per cent share, the rest of the amount was then transferred to Indian bank accounts.