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Tuesday April 23, 2024

20 Indian-origin persons caught in call center scam in US

By Web Desk
July 21, 2018

NEW YORK: Around 20 Indian-origins are found convicted for their involvement in a multi million-dollar India-based call center scam which hoodwinked thousands of US citizens for hundreds of millions of dollars.

The duration for their prison sentences ranges from 4-20 years. It is assumed that they will be deported to India after the completion of their sentence.

“The stiff sentence imposed represents the culmination of the first ever large scale, multi-jurisdiction prosecution targeting the India call-center scam industry”, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said.

The conspirators worked on a complex fraud and money laundering scheme in which individuals from call centers in Ahmedabad frequently impersonated officials from the Internal Revenue Service or US citizenship and immigration service in a ruse designed to defraud victims located throughout America.

Elderly and legal immigrants Americans were found vulnerable to this scheme.

Later, the victims who agreed to pay were told how to pay the scammers. Usually they were instructed to pay the amount by purchasing stored value cards or wiring money. After the payment was made the scammers liquidated and laundered the extorted funds as quickly as possible by purchasing reloadable cards or retrieving wire transfers, the justice department said.