Call centre crooks earned Rs 2K­-Rs 5K per victim

MUMBAI: The police’s interrogation of suspects in the Thane ‘call centre’ scam has revealed that the scammers targetted gullible taxpayers not only in the US but

MUMBAI: The police’s interrogation of suspects in the Thane ‘call centre’ scam has revealed that the scammers targetted gullible taxpayers not only in the US but in the UK and Australia as well, by working round the clock in shifts. They posted details of their victims on internal WhatsApp groups and earned Rs2,000 to Rs5,000 per victim.

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On Tuesday night, the police raided several bogus call centres, where employees allegedly posed as US Internal Revenue Service officials to con people over the phone. They rounded up about 700 employees and arrested 72 of them.

A senior official in the Thane crime branch said, “We have learnt that the call centres functioned 24x7. Separate sets of trained callers would dupe people in the UK and Australia using similar methods. We will trace these employees and arrest them soon.”

The official said that the shift for the Australia calls would start at 7am, and for the UK at 11.30 am. While those calling Australian citizens would pose as officials from the Australian Taxation Office, those calling the UK would masquerade as officials from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.

He said the scripts varied according to the target country and that the callers were trained by experts to adopt the appropriate accent. A source said the police have already retrieved some conversations from the 820 hard disks seized in the raid.

The police have also learnt that the employees had set up several WhatsApp groups to post their daily ‘traps’.

“Every member would disclose his or her traps and earnings from them. The highest earner would get a bonus of between Rs2,000 to Rs5,000,” the official said. The administrators of these chat groups were the promoters of the call centres or managers appointed by them, he added. “We have also found Excel sheets in which the salaries and bonuses to the employees were recorded,” said the official.