When the teams of the Thane Police were conducting raids at four call centres located in Mira Road on October 4, whose employees had extorted US nationals in the name of that country’s tax and immigration authorities, the scam’s mastermind Sagar Thakkar was at his friend’s residence in Ahmedabad.
Thakkar was apparently getting information on the police crackdown in real-time from his Mira-Road-based associates, sources said. The next day, on October 5, Thakkar had shifted to an Ahmedabad hotel to stay out of the police’s scanner. The same night, on October 6, he caught a flight to Dubai, sources said. The Thane police issued a lookout notice against Thakkar and his sister around a week later, which seeks his detention at India’s entry and exit points.
Sources from Ahmedabad said Thakkar was in the Gujarat capital with one of his friends on October 4. When the Thane police raided his call centre in Mira Road, he received photos of it from one of his employees.
After this he planned to flee to Dubai on the night of October 5, shifting to a hotel in Ahmedabad and later caught an early flight to Dubai. A Thane police official said, “We have interrogated his friends and relatives. None of them knew about his illegal activities. They used praise his hard work and money that he suddenly started getting through illegal business.”
He further added, “He himself managed everything and took help of his four other friends too. One of his friends dismantled all his business work from his offices in Ahmedabad on the night of October 4. His other four friends who were helping him had already fled from the place. We would have been able to catch him if the Ahmedabad police would have helped us at that time. We have received information about the location of Thakkar and we will try our best to catch his other aides.”
