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| US charges 61 people in Indian call center scam |
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11/01/2016 09:12 PM |
WASHINGTON, Oct 27, 2016,
The scam, which had operated since 2013, targeted at least 15,000 people who lost more than $300 million, the department said in a statement. Reuters file photo
More than 60 individuals and entities, an overwhelming number of them Indians, were today charged by the Justice Department for allegedly participating in a multi-million dollar scam involving call centres based in India which conned thousands of American citizens.
Twenty of these individuals were arrested in the US today, while 31 of these individuals and five call centers have been charged for their alleged involvement in the scam.
An additional US-based defendant is currently in the custody of immigration authorities.
Many of these, who were arrested in India recently, faces deportation to the US.
The indictment alleges that the defendants were involved in a "sophisticated fraudulent scheme organised by conspirators in India, including a network of call centers in Ahmedabad", the Department of Justice said.
Using information obtained from data brokers and other sources, call-centre operators allegedly called potential victims while impersonating officials from the Internal Revenue Service or US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
According to the indictment, the call-centre operators then threatened potential victims with arrest, imprisonment, fines or deportation if they did not pay taxes or penalties to the government.
If the victims agreed to pay, the call-centres would then immediately turn to a network of US-based co-conspirators to liquidate and launder the extorted funds as quickly as possible by purchasing prepaid debit cards or through wire transfers, federal prosecutors alleged.
The prepaid debit cards were often registered using misappropriated personal identifying information of thousands of identity theft victims, and the wire transfers were directed by the criminal associates using fake names and fraudulent identifications, the indictment said.
According to the indictment, the co-conspirators allegedly used "hawalas" to direct the extorted funds to accounts belonging to US-based individuals. These individuals were expecting the hawala transfers but were not aware of the illicit nature of the funds. The co-conspirators also allegedly kept a percentage of the proceeds for themselves.
Mumbai Police unearthed the scam, involving more than Rs 500 crore, after raiding seven call centres on Mira Road. The con job had been going on for a few months, police have said.
The daily transactions of the call centres stood at around Rs 1.5 crore.
"This is a transnational problem, and demonstrates that modern criminals target Americans both from inside our borders and from abroad. Only by working tirelessly to gather evidence, build cases and working closely with foreign law enforcement partners to ensure there are no safe havens can we effectively address these threats," Assistant Attorney General Leslie R Caldwell told reporters at a news conference here.
One of the call-centres extorted USD 12,300 from an 85-year-old victim from San Diego, California, after threatening her with arrest if she did not pay fictitious tax violations.
On the same day that she was extorted, one of the US-based defendants allegedly used a reloadable debit card funded with the victim's money to purchase money orders in Frisco, Texas, the Justice Department said.
Some of the victim's money ended up on cards which were activated using stolen personal identifying information from US-based victims, it said.
The probe, which began in 2013, has revealed a trans- national criminal organisation was operating both in the US and overseas in India, making hundreds of millions of dollars.
Treasury Inspector General for Tax Exemption, Russell George said since 2013, have received over two million contacts from individuals who said they have received solicitations.
"Of that number, approximately 10,000 people have acknowledged they have fallen victim to this scam in the amount of USD 50 million," he said.
Department of Homeland Security Inspector General, John Roth, said the case was massive.
"Over USD 250 million in stolen money," he said.
"These fraudsters exploited the immigrants fears of deportation and the insecurity of the elderly with this deceitful assertion of power. In many instances, the scammers portrayed themselves as immigration agents who called to collect fines resulting from faulty immigration paperwork. Fines not paid would result in the immediate deportation," he said.
"These calls were from numbers that reflected that the call came from the national call center from the immigration services call center," he added.
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| Re: US charges 61 people in Indian call center scam |
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11/01/2016 09:23 PM |
Praful Patel kept his eyes to the ground as he walked away from the federal courthouse Thursday evening.
Surrounded by a huddle of reporters, Patel, 49, of south Fort Myers declined to answer questions about his role in what authorities called a "multimillion dollar Indian Call Center scam" targeting U.S. victims.
Patel, who emigrated to the U.S. about eight years ago, was arrested Thursday by the Department of Homeland Security and charged with conspiracy to defraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Federal Judge Carol Mirando for the Middle District of Florida released Patel on $150,000 bond. Patel stayed quiet during the court hearing, but at one point turned around to nod at his brother-in-law Jignesh Patel, a financial investor in the chain of Subway franchises Patel owns.
Jignesh Patel declined to comment.
Patel was arrested by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security at his home in the 16000 block of Whispering Trace Court in Colony Trace, which is located near Winkler Road in south Fort Myers.
Federal authorities unsealed an indictment Thursday at a press conference in Washington, D.C., charging Patel and 55 others in a vast fraud scheme in which suspects posed as Internal Revenue Service agents and immigration authorities to siphon more than $300 million from thousands of unwitting victims.
The scheme, which employed a network of telephone call centers based in India, relied on personal information obtained from data brokers to target at least 15,000 victims with threats of fines, deportation or imprisonment if they did not pay the demanded fees.
The scheme targeted recent emigrants from India, Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Schmitz said during the federal court hearing. Emigrants were told they faced deportation if they didn't pay tax charges, he said.
Patel acted as a runner for the organization, Schmitz said. A runner purchased "general purpose reloadable" cards and forwarded the numbers to payment processors in India so the cards could be registered, according to the 81-page indictment. The cards were loaded with fraud proceeds and then used to buy money orders. Runners retrieved the cash payments of scammed funds via money transmitters and then deposited the money into bank accounts.
Schmitz said surveillance footage was taken of Patel depositing money into a North Fort Myers bank.
"These crimes would fall well into the rubric of white collar crime... There is no danger to people in the community," said Ellis Summers, Patel's federal public defender.
Patel faces up to five years for conspiracy to defraud, and up to 20 years each for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
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