In a major embarrassment for India, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) revealed that American citizens lost nearly Rs 25,000 crores ($3 billion) in the past two years in a series of scams originating largely from illegal call centres and phishing gangs in India. The amount is roughly the state budget of Tripura in 2022. Surprisingly, the scam witnessed a major jump in comparison to the last year. In 2021, Americans lost nearly $6.9 billion to fraudsters. Whereas in the last past 11 months, Indian scammers lured $10.2 billion from gullible citizens. These include romance scams, phone scams, mass-mailing fraud schemes, and tech-support fraud schemes.
How do they do it?
According to the statement released by the US Department of Justice, India-based callers mislead American consumers into believing that the callers work for lending institutions and that the victims are eligible for fictitious loans. The India–based callers direct the victims to pay upfront fees to demonstrate their ability to repay the loan. At times, the callers direct victims to provide their bank account information and make it appear as though they had deposited funds into the victims’ accounts. The callers then tell the victims to withdraw the funds and transfer them via wire transfer and…
