Flashback 2016: 24-year-old defrauds US nationals of millions

The call centre scam came to light in October 2016, after the police raided nine Mira Road-based call centres in Thane, which initially led to the arrest of over 71 employees of the call centres. The employees of the call centres allegedly extorted US nationals in the name of their tax and immigration authorities to the tune of several hundred crores. The scam was run from five call centres located in Mira Road, a suburb in Thane district.

The employees of the call centres would call US nationals pretending to be officials of Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the American tax authority, and after verifying their credentials inform the US nationals that they had to pay a fine for delaying on their taxes. The police has booked the accused in the case for cheating by impersonation, cheating, extortion, criminal conspiracy and causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offenders along with relevant sections of the IT Act.

After the scam came to light, officials of US law enforcement agency Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) visited the Thane police to collect certain documents regarding the case. The FBI is now running a parallel investigation in the US with the help of the Thane police. Investigation in the case revealed the role of Sagar Thakkar (24), who was allegedly the mastermind of the scam and one of the main fund providers to the call centre. Thakkar allegedly planned the scam with the help of his sister Reema Thakkar, based in Ahmedabad. The police in October issued a lookout notice for both Thakkar and Reema.

Meanwhile, the Thane police has found that apart from Thakkar, the call centres’ operations were also funded by a Delhi-based businessman. In this regard, the police has sent a team to Delhi to track down the businessman.  

Confirming this, a Thane police officer told The Asian Age, “We have sent a five-member team to Delhi. We are investigating the role of a businessman about whose role we received intelligence.”

• October 4, 2016: The Thane police raids nine call centres and busts a scam where employees posed as IRS officials and made calls to US citizens to extort money.
• October 7: The police reveals that lakhs of US nationals were duped and the scam is said to be of over Rs 300 crore.
• October 21: Sagar and Reema Thakkar’s roles are brought to light.