Police in India arrest 70 for IRS phone scam

Police in India this week arrested 70 people allegedly involved in a scam in which some pretended to be IRS agents, according to media reports.

{mosads}The scam involved nine call centers in Thane, near Mumbai, where employees impersonated IRS workers and threatened victims that they would be arrested if they didn’t pay them. The scammers would sometimes ask victims to transfer funds by buying gift cards from iTunes and other businesses, and other times victims deposited money into bank accounts, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Those who were arrested include people suspected of having leading roles in the scam. Hundreds of others are being investigated following raids of the call centers.

CNN reported that the call centers were making as much as $150,000 per day and had been in business for up to a year.

Phone scams have been a major issue for the IRS. At hearings earlier this year, several members of Congress and IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said they have received calls from scammers.

In May, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration announced that five people had been arrested in Miami for their role in nearly $2 million in scams that hurt more than 1,500 victims.