Shillong, August 29: The East Khasi Hills District Police on a tip off that an IRS scam was taking place from the rented premises of SS Net Com and the building immediately adjacent to RBI Building at Cleve Colony conducted mounted surveillance on the places and gathered that unscrupulous persons were cheating through VOIP, gullible American citizens whose details are acquired from certain websites , by impersonating as Internal Revenue Service Agents(IRS) and threatening them to make payments by making them purchase Gift Cards from Walmart or Target Store for default of tax payments defaults or face jail sentence. The purchaser then hands over the 16 digit number to the caller who the send the numbers to a vendor in the US to get the amount reimbursed. The same is then remitted to India by hawala channels.
The fraud Call Centre namely M/s IFA Enterprise rented three floors of the building of SSNet.Com at Cleve Colony was run by Mr Amit Bhowmick and Shri Sunny Mukherjee know Faisal who were stationed outside and would come after certain intervals to pay salaries, while another call centre M/s BPO Zurich was operating from the RBI premises also at Cleve Colony. It was also gathered that due raids in several parts of the country, the scamsters were trying to wind up and set shop somewhere else.
On receiving specific inputs yesterday evening that the owners of the IFA Enterprise Call centre had come in their Chervolet cruise AS01AZ 0101 used by the scamsters and were in an apartment at Cleve Colony, several teams of the Special Cell East Khasi Hills were despatched . At about 7:30 simultaneous raids were conducted in apartments at two different places in Cleve Colony whereby Amit Bhowmick 24 yrs of Tura , Shri Vivek Thapa of Cleve Colony and Ms. Naina Gurung22 yrs of Lower Nongrim Hills, also involved with the centre, were apprehended. 77 Hard Disks which had been removed from CPUs, cash Rs 1 lakh and a huge number of incriminating documents including scripts were seized from the apartment rented by IFA Enterprise at Upper Cleve Colony.
Mr Pynshan Mawthoh of Madanrting one of the managers of M/s IFA Enterprise who had come out of the apartment was also apprehended. From the apartment rented by Ms/ BPO Zurich at Lower New Colony electronic gadgets used in the scam , cash Rs 1 lakh and several incriminating documents were recovered and seized . Mr Rijo Christian Joseph 26 yrs of Ahmadabad Gujarat and one Miss Sweety Sutnga 22 of Lower Nongrim Hills were also apprehended. Two separate cases Laitumkhrah Ps C/No.134(8)17 u/s 120(B)/385/419/420/468/34 IPC and Laitumkhrah Ps C/No.135(8)17 u/s 120(B)/385/419/420/468/34 have been registered. They have been arrested and forwarded to the court of the CJM, Shillong today and been given Police remand for 6 days.
Meanwhile today, search was conducted in three floors rented by M/s IFA ENTERPRISELtd from the from SS Net .Com where 85 CPUs and several IRS scripts were recovered and seized. Two employees of SS Net Com Mobiliser, Mr Christopher Kurbah 23 yrs of Lawsohtun and Manager, Mr Kiren Damai 39 yrs of Digboi Dibrugarh have also been arrested in connection with the IFA ENTERPRISE Call Centre. In the process it was also gathered that another Call Centre namely M/s Dasanbha Enterprise owned by Mr Nicky War of Jaiaw along with others were planning to close shop.
He was summoned immediately and after questioning him it was found that the Call Centre would call American Citizens by asking the customer if he or she suffers from any sickness or undergone any surgical operation from a range of health problems. They would ask the customer if he or she has got hold of an advocate which no is the obvious answer and then would claim to be a reputed American firm which would help them in getting ‘potential compensation’ for a fee ranging from $650 only to dupe the persons. 63 Computers, a server, seals and 43 Hard Disks seized.
A separate case is being taken up at Laitumkhrah police station . The owner of M/s Dasanbha Enterprise Shri Nicky War has been arrested and be produced the following day. A full fledged investigation is on to reach to its logical conclusion of the case and to nab the rest of the culprits.
