A call center in India was telling people in the United States that they were in trouble with the IRS for tax evasion or tax fraud. Luckily, I know that the IRS writes letters and doesn’t email or leave voice mail unless you have a personal relationship with a particular agent. the US Justice Department claimed that people had been scammed out of $300 million with this scam.
There were 20 people arrested in American and India did several raids to arrest several dozen in India regarding this scam. The individual knownn as “Shaggy” who allegedly masterminded the entire scam has taken refuge in the United Arab Emirates — out of reach of Indian authorities.
Meanwhile Indian authorities have seized an Audi that the alleged mastermind Thakkar gave to his girlfriend and are looking for other assets.
The main technique used during the scam operation is typical. They bullied Americans with threats of arrest, jail, confiscated assets, and more. The IRS threatens to confiscate assets, but I have not heard of them threatening people with jail time unless their Attorneys have reviewed your case and a serious case of fraud has been proven such as in the case of the famous gangster Al Capone from decades ago. The government couldn’t find enough dirt to jail Capone on his criminal activities, but were able to bust him on tax evasion of all things.
Maybe this scam call center should get a written testimonial from Al Capone (no longer living) to prove that real people do get jailed for evading taxes.
The moral of the story here is to be on the lookout for scams from India. But, there is tremendous dishonesty right here at home too. Most Americans have their bristles up when someone tries to scam them and are even suspicious of you when you are not trying to scam them. It is that occassional person who is not registering that they are being taken advantage of that the scammers capitalize on. Make sure that person is not you!