Just 23 years! Shaggy is Mumbai call centre scam's mastermind

Mumbai - The callers used to make calls to people in the US and speak to them in American accent by posing as officials of US Internal Revenue Service.

The mastermind of the Mumbai call centre scam is a 23-year-old youth called Shaggy, the police sources have said.
According to media reports, Shahgar Thakkar alias Shaggy, who has been pulling the strings is currently on the run along with aide Tapash ever since the police raid in which 70 staffers were arrested and 630 were served notice last week.
Thakkar, despite his young age was apparently able to become a multimillionaire and owns several high-end cars according to witnesses and accused. Some sources believe that he may have fled India.
Four call centres raided
The crime branch officials raided the four call centres on Saturday, but could not nab the owners and employees as the call centres were found deserted, around 250 computers were seized out of which 100 had no hard disks.

A police team has also gone to Gujarat to nab the kingpin of the racket, they said.
During the raids conducted last week at three call centres, 70 persons were arrested, and another 630 people booked under IPC sections 384 (extortion), 419 (cheating by impersonation), 420 (cheating) and under relevant sections of the IT Act and Indian Telegraph Act, police said.
Employees posed as US treasury officials
The callers used to make calls to people in the US and speak to them in American accent by posing as officials of US Internal Revenue Service.
A senior police official had earlier said that though salary of the employees was in range of Rs 10,000-40,000 per month, some of them earned up to Rs 1 lakh per month.
The employees were fully trained in US accent and were given SOP and call sheet, based on which they used to make calls to the 'tax defaulters', he said.
They use to make at least 100 calls per day of which 10 to 15 calls would materialise and of these three to four people would make payment under threat by the conmen, he said.
If the caller earned $10,000-20,000 for company by making the gullible US citizen pay, he would get a good incentive, police said.
The daily turn over of these call centres was to the tune of nearly Rs 1 crore to Rs 1.50 crore, and the annual turn over could be well above Rs 300 crore.
Police said during interrogation of the arrested persons they have got some vital information which would help them in probing the case further.
 

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