Hundreds of people at multiple call centers in India are under investigation for duping American taxpayers in a major scam.
Nine call centers in Mumbai have been posing as the IRS and conning Americans for a year, reports The New York Times.
The centers reportedly mass messaged more than 10,000 Americans at a time telling them that they needed to speak with them about an urgent matter. A recording of the message is now in police custody. The message says, “There is a lawsuit filed in your name regarding tax evasion and fraud,” reports the Indian Express.
When people would call back, the call center employees would impersonate IRS agents and introduce themselves using American names and American accents, Parag Manere, the deputy commissioner of police in Thane in Maharashtra, revealed to reporters.
The fake agents told people that the IRS would raid their homes in 30 minutes if they did not receive payment immediately, explained Makarand Ranade, another police official stationed in Thane. Fearing that they would go to jail for tax defaults, people would go online and pay $500 to $3,000.
The call center employees would tell victims their names and badge numbers. The workers even spoofed the toll number of the IRS to ensure that IRS would flash on victims’ caller IDs, local police revealed.
A disgruntled employee informed authorities about the illicit operations several weeks ago. After a preliminary investigation, local police raided the call centers. Seventy people have been arrested, and around 600 are under investigation.
“This could be the tip of the iceberg and the amount could multiply as our probe progresses,” said Thane police commissioner Param Bir Singh, according to the Economic Times. He noted that there is a possibility that people in the United Kingdom and Australia may have also been scammed by the call centers.
“They were stunned to see the police. They never thought the police would raid them,” said Manere.
Indian police told U.S. authorities that the call center may have been bringing in $90,000 to $150,000 a day, which means that during its one year in business, it deceived Americans for millions of dollars.
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