The US government is taking aim at the \u201cIndia-based call centre scam industry\u201d, Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski has warned while announcing the extradition of an Indian citizen from Singapore allegedly involved in a multi-million dollar racket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hitesh Madhubhai \nPatel, 42, who operated the HGlobal call centre in Ahmedabad, was \nextradited to face trial on charges relating to the scam that allegedly \nripped off thousands of Americans of millions of dollars using people in\n call centres impersonating US government officials, the Justice \nDepartment said Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Patel was arrested and produced on Friday\n in a federal court in Houston, Texas, where Magistrate Judge Peter Bray\n remanded him to custody, according to a court document obtained by \nIANS. He is to appear in court again on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis \nextradition once again demonstrates the Department\u2019s unwavering \ncommitment to disrupt and dismantle the India-based call centre scam \nindustry and to work with our foreign partners to hold accountable those\n who perpetrate schemes that defraud our citizens,\u201d Benczkowski said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After\n Patel flew from India to Singapore, he was arrested there on September \n21, 2018, at the request of the US, and Singapore Law Minister K. \nShanmugam issued a warrant on March 25 to hand him over to America, the \nJustice Department said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis historic extradition should serve \nas notice to transnational criminal organisations of the lengths DHS is \nwilling to go to arrest those who would enrich themselves by extorting \nthe most vulnerable in our society,\u201d said David Green, the Special Agent\n in charge of the DHS Houston Field Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The India-based call \ncentres allegedly impersonated tax or immigration officials and called \npeople in the US and threatened them with arrest or deportation if they \ndid not pay what they claimed were back taxes or fines, according to the\n chargesheet filed against them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When their victims agreed to \npay, the people at the call centre arranged for payments to be collected\n in the form of store cards or wire transfers by their co-conspirators \nin the US, who cashed them often using stolen identities and laundered \nthe money, according to the charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since 2013, the tax official\n impersonation scam \u201chas been on a relentless path, claiming more than \n15,000 victims who have collectively suffered over $75 million in \nlosses\u201d, said Treasury Inspector General J. Russell George.Federal \nagencies have identified 140 scammers, including Patel, \u201cwho have preyed\n upon taxpayers\u201d, he added.The fraud calls originating from India that \nare received by millions of Americans are hurting the country\u2019s \nreputation as a hub for back office, tech support and call centre \noperations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In recent weeks, at least three persons of Indian \ndescent have been sentenced to prison terms in cases of tax official \nimpersonation.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US government is taking aim at the \u201cIndia-based call centre scam industry\u201d, Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski has warned while announcing the extradition of an Indian citizen from Singapore allegedly involved in a multi-million dollar racket. Hitesh Madhubhai Patel, 42, who operated the HGlobal call centre in Ahmedabad, was extradited to face trial on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59624,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59623"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59625,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59623\/revisions\/59625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}