Mastermind of $300 Million Telephone Tax Scams Arrested

It is a good day for all Americans. A huge tax scam operation, involving hundreds of criminals in several cities in India, has been shut down by US and Indian authorities! The mastermind, Sagar Thakkar, known as ‘Shaggy’ was finally arrested at the airport after he went into hiding back in October.    

This huge telephone fraud network has been operating for some time at a massive scale. Organized in multiple call centers across several Indian cities, these fraudsters would call U.S. citizens and impersonate investigators from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), demanding payments and penalties. Their aggressive tactics often included threatening victims with arrest, impressment, fines and deportation.    

Through joint U.S. and Indian law enforcement cooperation, the call centers were raided last October and over 400 people were charged. The head of the operation, Thakkar, fled the country to avoid capture. He was finally detained at the Mumbai airport and now awaits extradition to the United States.   

In all, this telefraud scam targeted over 15,000 American victims at an estimated loss of $300 million. Although this is a great win for the good-guys, there are still many more professionally organized scammers operating around the world targeting people. Much thanks to the U.S. and Indian authorities for their hard work in keeping the pressure on such fraudsters.   

For more information on U.S. tax identify fraud and scams, visit the IRS Tax Scams and Consumer Alerts site: https://www.irs.gov/uac/tax-scams-consumer-alerts     

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