Organized set-up that got information of victims online.
Police officials revealed that the scamsters in the Mumbai call center scam in which 1.2 million Americans were called up and at least 6,400 cheated, used data from popular websites to find their victims.
PTI reported that the scamsters used popular people search websites to gain access to the name, address, and phone number of several people in the US. The important information regarding the modus operandi of the group was revealed after the arrest of Jagdish Kanani, 35, the former boss of Sagar Thakkar alias Shaggy, the mastermind of the fraud.
According to the police, the call center on Mira Road used internet-based calls to threaten people, posing as Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officers. They made calls to many phone numbers simultaneously.
“Some of the victims got frightened with this and called back. When the call was returned, the call center executives, through the phone number of the caller, surfed through the websites (having information about people’s name, addresses, and other details) in real time to understand the paying ability of the person at the other end,” a police official told PTI.
A list of people having higher paying capacity was made to prioritize the calls much ahead of starting their operation.
“During investigation, it was revealed that the scam’s alleged mastermind, SagarThakkar alias Shaggy, and his associates used to blast the VOIP calls from Ahmedabad,” the official said.
As numbers similar to those in the United States were displayed on mobile phones, the people believed that the calls were made by the tax department officials.
The callers threatened the people of legal action if they fail to pay the amount prescribed by them.
They used a number of ways to threaten and asked them to pay $10,000 dollars or more through preloaded debit cards, I-tune or Target, forced them to disclose the 16-digit card number.
The caller then used to send the number to his/her senior and further passed it on to the mastermind. He would do the transaction, keep 30 percent for himself and give the rest to the employee.
The mastermind Shahgar Thakkar, alias Shaggy, is a 23-year-old youth who is on the run since Thane police raided the call center earlier this month.