SHILLONG: After the arrest of six persons on Monday evening in connection with the scam involving call centres in city set up by imposters to dupe American citizens, three more persons including two employees of SS Net Com were arrested by the police on Tuesday.
The modus operandi of the arrested persons was to impersonate as Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officials claiming to be from the US, aimed at duping American citizens to collect taxes online.
The fake IRS racket was busted in the city after a long surveillance by the police.
The gang duped US citizens after claiming to be calling from the Internal Revenue Service, United States.
In a statement issued here, SP (City) Vivek Syiem said while six persons arrested were remanded to police custody for six days, those who were arrested on Tuesday will be produced before the court on Wednesday.
Syiem said after police came to know about the IRS scam originating from the rented premises of SS Net Com and the building adjacent to RBI Building at Cleve Colony, a team mounted surveillance on the places and found out that unscrupulous persons were cheating gullible American citizens through Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP).
The details of the citizens were acquired from certain websites, and by impersonating as Internal Revenue Service Agents, the arrested men used to threaten them to release payments by making them purchase gift cards from Walmart or Target Store for default of tax payments or face jail sentence.
“The purchaser then hands over the 16 digit number to the caller who sends the numbers to a vendor in the US to get the amount reimbursed. The same is then remitted to India by hawala channels,” Syiem said.
The fraud call centre, M/s IFA Enterprise, rented three floors on the building housing SS Net Com at Cleve Colony and it was run by Amit Bhowmick and Sunny Mukherjee alias Faisal who were stationed outside and came after certain intervals to pay salaries to the scamsters, while another call centre, M/s BPO Zurich, was operating from the RBI premises at Cleve Colony.
According to Syiem, it was also gathered that after raids in several parts of the country, the scamsters were trying to wind up and set up shops elsewhere.
After getting inputs that the owners of the IFA Enterprise Call centre had come in their Chevrolet Cruze (AS01AZ 0101) and were in an apartment at Cleve Colony on Monday evening, several teams of the police were dispatched and at around 7:30 pm, simultaneous raids were conducted in apartments at two different places in Cleve Colony. Amit Bhowmick (24) of Tura, Vivek Thapa of Cleve Colony and a lady, Naina Gurung (22) of Lower Nongrim Hills, also involved with the centre, were arrested.
As many as 77 hard disks which had been removed from CPUs, cash Rs 1 lakh and a huge number of incriminating documents, including scripts, were seized from the apartment rented by IFA Enterprise at Upper Cleve Colony.
Pynshan Mawthoh of Madanrting, one of the managers of M/s IFA Enterprise who had come out of the apartment, was also arrested.
Electronic gadgets used in the scam, Rs 1 lakh in cash and several incriminating documents were recovered and seized from the apartment rented by Ms/ BPO Zurich at Lower New Colony.
Rijo Christian Joseph (26) currently hailing from Ahmadabad, Gujarat and one Sweety Sutnga (22) of Lower Nongrim Hills were also arrested.
Two separate cases under Laitumkhrah police stations were registered.
Later on Tuesday, a search was conducted in three floors rented by M/s IFA Enterprise limited from the SS Net Com where 85 CPUs and several IRS scripts were recovered and seized.
Two employees of SS Net Com Mobiliser, Christopher Kurbah (23) of Lawsohtun and Manager, Kiren Damai (39) of Digboi, Assam have also been arrested.
Syiem said in the process it was also gathered that another Call Centre, M/s Dasanbha Enterprise, owned by Nicky War of Jaiaw, along with others were planning to close down. He was summoned and after questioning him it was found that the Call Centre would call American citizens by asking the customer if he or she suffered from any sickness or underwent any surgical operation from a range of health problems.
They would ask the customer if he/she had arranged an advocate (for which no is the obvious answer) and then would claim to be a reputed American firm which would help them in getting ‘potential compensation’ for a fee ranging from $650 to dupe the persons.
Sixty three computers, a server, seals and 43 hard disks were seized. A separate case is being taken up at Laitumkhrah police station. The owner of M/s Dasanbha Enterprise Nicky War was arrested.
East Khasi Hills SP Davis Marak on Tuesday said the arrested people had taken permission to set up call centres in Shillong but they were misusing it by duping people.
“Usually, they used to call US citizens and tell them that they had not paid their taxes and therefore asked to deposit some amount or to buy some gift coupons,” he said.
According to Marak, once the money is deposited by victims, half of it used to come to India through the hawala channel and a share was given to the imposters operating from Shillong.
The lion’s share used to go to the main heads of the racket in Ahmedabad.
Marak said the group of racketeers running a fake centre in Shillong was planning to close down the centre and the arrests were made when the main kingpins of the racket had come to Shillong on Monday.
The arrested people told the police that on an average, they used to earn around 80,000 US dollars per month.
Police are also trying to find out whether they duped any Indian citizen.
