US national paid Shaggy Rs 25L to set up call centre

Interrogation of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) extortion racket mastermind Sagar Thakkar alias Shaggy revealed that a United States (US) national had paid Rs 25 lakh to Thakkar to start his first call centre to con US nationals in India. Shaggy had initially started a client connect call centre in Mira Road, which he later converted into a con call centre.

As per Thakkar, while US national Lucas Edwards used to provide details of US-based victims who had defaulted on taxes, processing of the money was done by two Delhi residents— Jugal Saini and Ashish Choudhary, both wanted in the case.

"Thakkar learned about the racket through Lucas Edwards who had paid him Rs 25 lakhs to start the first IRS scam in India. Thakkar returned the invested money to Edwards with interest after which he learned the tricks of the trade and started his own racket. Thakkar was produced in the Thane court which remanded him to police custody till April 17," said Abhishek Trimukhe, DCP, Crime Branch.

A senior officer from Crime branch said, "We have also learnt that Thakkar wrote few scripts and coding for Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) but it is not our part of investigations."