Call Centre Scam

The probe into the multi-million dollar Call Centre Scam has revealed six new names.

According to Thane police commissioner Param Bir Singh, who is credited with exposing the racket, the probe team hit upon the vital information when it was scanning the seized call record hard disks.

One more person was arrested on Thursday in connection with the multi-million dollar trans-national Call Centre Scam, in which hundreds of thousands of US citizens were conned into paying off fictitious debts. 29-year-old Akhilesh Singh is the 75th person to be arrested in the case, even as mastermind Sagar Thakkar alias Shaggy continues to elude the police.

The 4-member committee of IPS officers, which is probing the menace of con call centres in city, learned that the kingpin of the Thane fake call centre, Sagar Thakkar, 23, used to have a daily turnover going up to hundred of thousand of dollars. Currently, police believe Thakkar is hiding in Dubai.

Two Indian-Americans on Saturday pleaded guilty to the charges of their involvement in a massive telephone impersonation fraud and money laundering scheme in the US perpetrated by India-based call centres.

Scale of scam could be over Rs 1,000 cr compared to earlier estimate of Rs 500 crore, claim police.

When the teams of Crime Branch of Thane Police were busy in raids at fake call centre in connection with the Call Centre Scam, its mastermind Sagar alias Shaggy Thakkar was on his way to flee the country in early hours of October 5, officials said.

The scam, which operated since 2013 through at least half a dozen call centres in Thane, targeted at least 15,000 US-based tax payers, who were allegedly conned by Indian tele-callers.

In the latest development in the fake Call Centre Scam the cops have filed nine supplementary chargesheets in the court in addition to the previous chargesheets filed in December. As many as 197 accused of the 630 persons booked were arrested in the fake call centre case who were impersonating as IRS officers and conned gullible American citizens to the tune of millions of US citizens.

Multiple US agencies are in touch with Thane police, exchanging details on the investigation. Sources say the call centre bust is the tip of the iceberg and the racket is spread across the country and perhaps even operates out of homes and not just commercial centres.

The cybercrime branch of the Dehradun police raided a city-based loan recovery call center on Friday after discreetly keeping a watch for three days. Five mobile phones and 32 sim cards were seized. There are allegations that photo morphing was carried out to harass the complainant and the complainant was also allegedly exploited financially by the recovery agents. The management of the call center has strongly refuted the allegations.

A 28-year-old Indian national in the US has pleaded guilty for his role in a multi-million dollar scam in which individuals from call centres located in India impersonated US tax and immigration officials to defraud victims across America.

The Arnala police have launched a search for the mastermind of the fake call centre run from a farmhouse cum resort in Rajodi in Virar (west).

Police in Dehradun, India have arrested two people after raiding a call center that was allegedly making threatening calls to people who were in debt. The police found five sharpedged weapons and a pistol magazine among other objectionable items in the call center. The weapons are estimated to be worth around Rs. 6,200.

Investigators probing the intricate financial web established by Sagar Thakar (24), alias Shaggy, the alleged mastermind of the fake Call Centre Scam, have zeroed in on a US citizen who routed the scam money to his accounts using a prominent money transfer agency.

An Indian national and an Indian-American have pleaded guilty to the charges of their involvement in a massive telephone impersonation fraud and money laundering scheme in the US perpetrated by India-based call centres.

Harsh Patel, 28, in the US has pleaded guilty for his role in a multi-million dollar scam in which individuals from call centres located in India impersonated US tax and immigration officials to defraud victims. He is the third Indian to have pleaded guilty to this scam that targeted Americans.