Over 500 employees of several call centres in Thane, Mumbai, were detained for allegedly threatening US citizens and siphoning off their money. Police said a raid was carried out by at least 200 police personnel, most of them from the Crime Branch.
The employees would call up US citizens and demand their financial and bank details, if they failed to give any, they would allegedly threaten them with dire consequences, including legal action. Once they obtained the details, they would siphon money from their accounts, amounting to a daily turnover of £100,000. After they received numerous complaints, the police kept a tab on the employees and eventually raided their premises.
The accused operated from call centres in Mira Road area, which comes under the direct jurisdiction of Thane rural police. Officials said the persons arrested, posed as officials of the US Tax Department. "It could be the tip of the iceberg and the amount could multiply as our probe progresses," said Thane Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh. He added that the persons would have even conned people in the UK and Australia. Government sources said the several US federal agencies have got in touch to get details of the scam, particularly of the gang members who were in the US and helped gather contact details of the targets.
While the owners of the call centres managed to escape, a manhunt has been launched to find them. The raid saw a total of 852 hard disks, high-end servers, DVRs, laptops, and equipment worth £100,000 seized. "The three call centres; Hari Om IT Park, Universal Outsourcing Services, and Oswal House, were collectively pocketing around £100,000 to 150,000 daily. The caller would use the VoIP technology using a proxy server and make hundreds of calls: the strike rate was anywhere around 5 per cent. But the amount they stole from the innocent people is mind boggling. In one case, one of the victims shelled out $60,000 just to escape a so-called raid on his house by taxmen," Singh said.
