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Mira Road call centre scam: US charges 61

US Govt says at least 15,000 people were tricked into shelling out over $300 million; extorted funds were laundered with help of pre-paid debit cards

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Days after the Thane police busted a scam operating from bogus call centres in Mira Road, the Justice Department in the US has charged 61 defendants in the country as well as abroad, including five call center groups, in connection with the case.

The US government said at least 15,000 people were tricked into shelling out more than $300 million. Callers from India, posing as tax and immigration agents, threatened the US citizens of arrest, deportation and other punishments, unless they coughed up money to cover unpaid income taxes. The US Justice Department stated that the extorted funds were laundered with the help of pre-paid debit cards.

"We don't know the details. We would be very interested in them. Who are these people who were charged? Are these the same people wanted in our case or are they their counterparts, who were assisting the fraudsters here? We will try to obtain the details," said Commissioner of Police, Thane, Parambir Singh.

The Thane police had also come across information that similar call centres, where staffers impersonated IRS officials, were operating in Rajasthan and Kolkata as well. "Many such call centres were shut down, but similar frauds are still continuing. We will go after other scams now," Singh said.

Another important development that came to the notice of the Thane police was that Sagar Thakkar alias Shaggy, the prime accused in the entire racket, has moved out of Dubai towards the Central Asian Republic. "We are tracking his movements. It is a recent development. He has shifted out of Dubai," said a police officer.

Others wanted in the racket have been identified as Ali, Jimmy, Akhil Singh and Tapesh. Thakkar, the Ahmedabad-based kingpin of the racket, owned about 70 call centres in Ahmedabad, from where calls were placed to Americans.

The average monthly turnover of each call centre was about Rs 2 crore. The Thane Police had raided bogus call centers run by Thakkar at Mira Road on October 4. He has been on the run ever since. Then the police had suspected that he and his sister Reema had fled to Dubai.

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