A 24-year-old Indian man has been accused of being the mastermind behind those Internal Revenue Service (IRS) phone scams. Indian police have arrested Sagar Thakkar, claiming that he managed the scam in which callers posing as IRS agents tricked taxpayers into paying out millions.
As part of the scheme, scammers utilized a network of call centers in India to call potential victims in the United States. Using personally identifiable information obtained from a number of sources, including social media, scammers impersonated agents from the IRS or US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Calls were typically made using VoIP (voice over internet protocol) technology that allowed the scammers to “spoof” the phone numbers, making it appear that the calls were coming from the IRS or other government agency. As part of the scam, taxpayers were told to pay fake tax bills immediately or face arrest, deportation, or other legal action.
The scam was wildly successful. At one point, the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) referred to the scam as “the largest scam of its kind that we have ever seen” – and that was in 2014. By the end of 2016, the Better Business Bureau advised that the IRS phone scam was the most popular scam of 2016, accounting for 1 in 4 reported scams. And of course, the scam continued to top the IRS list of “Dirty Dozen” scams affecting US taxpayers.
The alleged ringleader, Thakkar, known as “Shaggy,” was said to be making more than 10 million rupees ($155,000) a day, or over a million dollars per week, at the scam’s peak.
In October of 2016, Indian police announced the arrests of 70 call center workers for their alleged roles in tax-related scams following a raid on call centers outside of Mumbai, India. More than 750 call center workers were detained in what a police spokesperson then characterized as an ongoing investigation.
Less than two weeks later, the Department of Justice, together with IRS, TIGTA, and Department of Homeland Security officials announced that 20 individuals in the United States had been arrested and two additional individuals were taken into custody in connection with the phone calls. The United States also announced at the time that it would be seeking extradition of individuals from India since the calls, made in India, were part of a conspiracy targeting U.S. persons.
Requests for comment from IRS and DOJ were not immediately returned (I will update as the story develops).
Following the spate of arrests, Thakkar reportedly fled to Dubai but eventually returned to India where he was arrested this week. The Mumbai Mirror reported that Thakkar told police that in addition to the IRS phone scams, there were “banking, pharmacy, grant and other scams spread across the country.” He is expected in court on Thursday.
