The recently unearthed multi-million dollar call centre scam of Mumbai was the brainchild of a 23-year-old youth, the police have said.
Shahgar Thakkar or Shaggy, who made nearly Rs 500 crore in one year by duping Americans, is currently on the run since the racket was busted on last Tuesday and is believed to have fled the country.
Thakkar ran three call centres that were collectively making around Rs 1 to 1.5 crore daily, duping people of around Rs 500 crore in a year, according to the police. Moreover, he came across as an inspiration to aspiring youngsters looking for quick money.
"Despite his youth, Thakkar has made a fortune, that too in a short span of time. At a very young age he has mastered the art of cheating foreigners by sitting in India," a police officer said, according to a report by the Economic Times.
The racket was busted by the police on Tuesday in Mira Road area of Thane in a late night raid. The raid was carried out by over 200 police personnel, mostly from the Crime Branch, late Tuesday night and continued in the wee hours on Wednesday, resulting in the detention of over 500 employees of these three call centres.
The police, after the arrest, said that that the accused were allegedly threatening the US citizens and siphoning off their money.
To hire callers for his racket, Shaggy invited candidates through social media flyers without any qualification for call centre work.
Once selected, the employees were fully trained in US accent. After rigorous training in accent, the candidates were handed a six-page script for mock calls. After perfecting the script, the candidates were inducted as employees.
They were given SOP and call sheet, based on which they used to make calls to people in the US and conned them after speaking in an American accent by posing as officials of US Internal Revenue Service.
Thakkar was helped by some people based in the US who provided him with the contact numbers acquired from hackers.
They used to make at least 100 calls per day of which 10-15 calls would materialise and of these 3-4 ‘tax defaulters’ would pay under threat by the conmen, police said.
The persons operated from call centres at the premises of Hari Om IT Park, Universal Outsourcing Services and Oswal House in Mira Road locality. The area comes under the jurisdiction of Thane Rural Police.
The callers posing as officials of US Tax Department, used to seek financial and bank details of US citizens and if the victims refused the information, they would allegedly threaten them with dire consequences including legal action and penalties.
After obtaining the requisite details from the American citizens, these call centre employees would siphon off money from their accounts.
The racket allegedly claimed the life of an elderly American woman, who was threatened after she refused to meet the demands of those who called her posing as tax officials.
According to police, some of the call centre employees earned up to Rs 1 lakh per month as a reward by the racket operators for making US nationals cough up money.
