Federal agents have arrested 20 people in eight states for their alleged involvement in a $250 million fraud scheme in which scammers at call centers in India coerced thousands of people across the U.S. including in Colorado to pay bogus tax debt to the IRS, authorities say.
About 15,000 people in the U.S. and in other countries were victimized including a California woman battling cancer who paid $7,000 after a caller told her she owed the debt related to medical deductions, authorities announced Thursday during a news conference in Washington, D.C.
In another case earlier this year, an India scammer called a Colorado Springs man and demanded that he pay four years in back taxes to the IRS, Bruce Foucart, assistant director with Homeland Security Investigations, said during the news conference.
The Colorado Springs man did not owe taxes and when he failed to put money in a particular bank account, the India scammer called 911 posing as a victim, telling the dispatcher that he was armed and wanted to kill police. Within minutes a dozen heavily armed officers surrounded the victim’s house where his daughter was home alone.
“Fortunately, no one was hurt,” Foucart said. “But as this scenario makes clear, the criminals involved in this scheme are willing to go to frightening length to try to collect from the victims.”
Foucart said a joint-agency investigation also involving U.S. Treasury agents began in 2013. Participants of the scam posing as U.S. immigration agents targeted immigrants, often threatening to have them deported if they did not pay.