Call centre fraud kingpin had an eye for fast cars

THANE: A passion for fast cars and living an uber rich lifestyle appears to have driven the mastermind of the fake call centres to make his millions the easy way, by conning innocent American taxpayers, police said.

In fact, the 23-year-old Sagar Thakkar aka Shaggy, who is now on the run, had a particular fascination for swank cars of sportspersons and is reported to have shelled out a fortune to buy a sports car once owned and driven by a young sensation from the Indian cricket team.

“He made a fortune in a very short time time by using the modus operandi and took only 30% per transaction. Shaggy used to send 70% to his counterparts operating the centres across the nation,” said a police officer.

A Thane crime branch team camping in

Gujarat

returned as they couldn’t find Shaggy, who is believed to have gone to Dubai in September. He reportedly decided against returning to India on learning of the call centre raids.

The Thane crime branch, which has been in hot pursuit of Shaggy since the raids at Mira Road call centres last week, has learnt that the computer geek turned his con business into a professional set-up that employed an army of young job seekers across Ahmedabad, Surat, Gandhinagar and Bhavnagar in Gujarat alone. Sources said similar centres existed in Delhi and Noida.

While some of these call centres have been abruptly shut, including those in Thane, Navi Mumbai and Mumbai, since the first raid on October 4, police also found international SIM cards used to call American citizens during their raids. During recent raids at four call centres, investigators also found boards which listed several points such as the need to use fake names and daily targets to be met, informed a source.

“One Whatsapp group formed by Shaggy suggested that he obtained the information about the targeted US citizens, from a source. It was shared on the group which was in turn shared by the prime arrested accused with their callers and closers,” said a police officer.

Thane police commissioner Param Bir Singh said the information revealed so far by the accused is just sketchy and many details remain to be unearthed. Top police officers said they have unearthed many branches linked to the cartel. Moreover, police believe hawala transactions were made to send the payments in India, but the money trail is yet to be established.

A team of Mumbai Police contacted the Thane crime branch on Tuesday and is said to have secured information about similar fraudulent call centres in Mumbai.