IRS scam tip of iceberg, police probing 4 more call centre frauds

The masterminds of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) call centre scam may be involved in at least four other such frauds to cheat US, Australian and Canadian citizens, a top police official said. The information is based on revelations by an arrested key accused, close to the multi-crore scam alleged kingpin Sagar Thakkar alias Shaggy, the official told PTI.

The arrested accused has revealed details of some more scams and their modus operandi in which they suspect thousands of US and some more foreign nationals have been cheated, he said. Beside cheating the US nationals by posing as US Tax Department officers, scamsters used to cheat people through the 'medical pharma scam', the official said.

In this scam, they used to illegally procure data of subscribers who regularly use medicines like Xenix, Tans-toil, Oxide, Hydrophone, insisted that they purchase them and used to cheat them of thousands of dollars, he said. The Thane Crime branch team is working to get more details of this scam, the official added.

In another racket, calls were made to people in the US for loan approval in which repayment was in instalments. In this, thousands of dollars worth of loan amount was deposited in the account of the victim to lure him without any documentation. If the victim evinced interest to get the loan, the call centre executive would then ask an upfront EMI to release the money, the police official said.

Soon after the "victim: deposited the 'EMI' amount in the given account, the 'loan' amount which was flashed in his account was also withdrawn by the scamsters immediately. Debt collection and cheque deposits are similar frauds where victims used to deposit money through gift cards and prepaid cards, thereby getting cheated, the official said.

Meanwhile, Thane Commissioner of Police, Parambir Singh told PTI that there are a few more scams, other than the one unearthed in Thane, which are being investigated. "We have so far found 200 call centres where call centre executive were posing as US tax department (IRS) officers and cheated US citizens of hundreds of crore," the official said. "If we include other scams too, the amount would be more than that in the call centre scam," he said.

"Following crime branch raids, we found that all call centres which were in this illegal business based in Kolkata, Gurgaon and Noida have shut down and those running them have fled," Singh said. Meanwhile, Thane police has seized a luxury Audi car belonging to Sagar, valued at Rs 2.5 crore, from Ahmedabad. It was allegedly purchased from a leading cricketer in May.

The scam, wherein US-based taxpayers were allegedly conned by Indian tele-callers posing as American tax and immigration officials, was unearthed early this month when police raided a clutch of call centres at Mira Road in Thane. Subsequently, police teams raided and shut down five call centres in Ahmedabad which were a part of the racket. Over 70 people, mostly directors and key persons linked to these call centres, have been arrested till now.