With stiff sentences for 21 conspirators last week in the United States and a round of indictments in India, the Justice Department says it has broken up what appeared to be the nation’s first large-scale, multinational telephone fraud operation. Over four years, more than 15,000 victims in the United States lost “hundreds of millions” of dollars to the sophisticated scam, and more than 50,000 individuals had their personal information misused, the department said Friday. The money was routed through call centers in India back to the ringleaders in eight states. The fraudulent calls came suddenly and frequently while the scam was active from 2012 to 2016, according to court documents. An 85-year old woman in San Diego paid $12,300 to people claiming to be I.R.S.

Source: New York Times July 23, 2018 16:49 UTC