source: globalnews.ca

U.S. authorities have sentenced 21 people in connection with an India-based call centre scam that bilked Americans of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Defendants were given sentences ranging from fines and probationary sentences to 20 years in prison, in what U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions called “the first-ever large-scale, multi-jurisdiction prosecution targeting the India call centre scam industry.”

The scammers’ modus operandi was similar to that of the network of fraudsters who were arrested in Oct. 2016 in an operation that may have targeted Canadians

According to the U.S. Justice Department, the sophisticated operation revolved around call centres in Ahmedabad, India, from where individuals called American citizens while posing as officials with Internal Revenue Services (IRS) or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (UCSIS).

Victims were told that they owed the government money, and were threatened with arrest, imprisonment, fines and deportation if they didn’t pay up. Those who gave in to the scam were made to pay using wire transfers, direct bank deposits or iTunes and other gift cards.

Once payment was made, the call centres alerted a network of runners in the U.S., who worked to liquidate and launder the ill-gotten money.

read the rest of the story here globalnews.ca