[WAPO] NEW DELHI -- Computer-savvy criminals posing as Internal Revenue Service officers at call centers in India may have bilked unsuspecting Americans out of millions, police in India said Thursday.
Police conducted a dramatic midnight raid at a call center in the country’s commercial capital of Mumbai Tuesday, and detained 770 employees for questioning, of which 70 were later charged with fraud, wrongful impersonation and violating the country’s Internet safety law.
The call centers were making more than $150,000 a day through these scams that took place for a little over a year, police said.
The callers told their American victims they were conducting a "tax revision" or that they had defaulted on payments to the I.R.S. and would then obtain their personal finance information and withdraw money from their bank accounts, according to Param Bir Singh, a senior police officer in Mumbai who led the raid. |