Shillong, Sept 01: The Meghalaya police may seek the cooperation of International Police Organization (Interpol) in connection with its probe into the call centres scam, where nine persons have been arrested so far.

Meghalaya home minister, H.D.R. Lyngdoh told reporters on Friday that if required later, during the investigation into the call centres scam, the state police would seek the cooperation of Interpol.
The Meghalaya police would also coordinate with the enforcement directorate and police in other states including Gujarat.

A special investigation team (SIT) was formed to investigate if the alleged fake call centres that operated in Shillong also have links with Sagar Thakkar, an alleged kingpin of the Internal Revenue Service call centre scam in India which has defrauded thousands of Americans.

The six-member SIT is headed by superintendent of police (city) Vivek Syiem.

Nine persons arrested by police so far were from three call centres, IFA Enterprise, BPO Zurich and Dasanbha Enterprise.

People from fake call centres in India would pose as IRS officials of the United States, and extorting money from US citizens online in the name of tax payment default.

The fraud callers would gather details of US citizens from websites, impersonate as IRS agents of United States and threaten customers to make payments/buy gift coupons for default of tax payments or face jail sentence. The victim would then hand over a 16-digit number to the caller who sent it to a vendor in the US to get the amount reimbursed, which was then remitted in India through hawala channels.

Incriminating documents, including IRS scripts, 77 hard disks and Rs 1 lakh cash were seized from IFA Enterprise office. From BPO Zurich office, electronic gadgets used in the scam, Rs 1 lakh cash and incriminating documents were seized. From Dasanbha Enterprise, 63 computers, a server, seals and 43 hard disks were seized.

From BPO Zurich’s office at Christian Basti in Guwahati, Shillong police had also seized 84 CPUs.