On October 5, Indian Authorities completed a police operation in Thane, India. This operation revealed that a number of Internal Revenue Service call centres were convincing victims to send money to fraudsters for a debt that they did not owe. Seventy suspects were arrested while hundreds of other call centre employees were detained for questioning. These call centers reportedly employed over 700 individuals.
CRA scam significantly decreased
Although the initial press releases made reference to just the IRS component of this scam, it is identical to the Canada Revenue Agency Scam. The difference is that the pitches are tailored to the specific country. The RCMP observed that the number of reports related to the CRA scam had significantly decreased to a small fraction of what was reported for the weeks and months leading up to these arrests.
Large scale fraud of more than $5.7 million
Based on statistics from Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, more than 1,900 victims have disbursed more than $5.7 million to fraudsters posing as government officials since January 2014. Over that same time period, the CAFC have received reports of roughly 37,000 calls made to Canadian residences demanding they send cash to resolve outstanding tax or immigration related matters.
Read more about the CRA scam at The Windsor Square.
