61 Charged in the IRS Impersonation Call Center Case That Changed Everything

So what happened?

On October 27, 2016, federal authorities announced that 61 people and entities had been charged in an indictment unsealed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE):

• 20 people were arrested in the U.S. that day.
• 32 individuals and five call centers in India were charged.
• The fraud allegedly victimized tens of thousands of people in the U.S. and cost them hundreds of millions of dollars.

The investigation was led by the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS OIG), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) with the help of the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The defendants faced charges of conspiracy to commit identity theft, false personation of a U.S. officer, wire fraud and money laundering. These are charges, not convictions.

How it allegedly worked

According to the indictment:

• Call centers in Ahmedabad, India, used info from data brokers and other sources to call people.
• Callers pretended to be from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
• They threatened arrest, jail, fines or deportation unless people paid fake taxes or penalties.
• U.S.-based co-conspirators turned the money around fast using prepaid debit cards, often registered with stolen identities, and wire transfers under fake names.
• Money moved overseas through hawalas, which transfer money outside the formal banking system.

One example: a call center allegedly extorted $12,300 from an 85-year-old San Diego woman by threatening her with arrest over fake tax violations. The same day, a U.S. defendant allegedly used a debit card funded with her money to buy money orders in Frisco, Texas.

Here's the thing ... data brokers

The fraudsters allegedly used information from data brokers. Read that again.

If you sell or buy consumer data, you need to think about where it ends up. Am I right?

What to do this week

• Know who's buying your data. And what they do with it.
• Never use a government agency name in a script. Ever.
• Teach people: the IRS doesn't call to threaten arrest, and it doesn't take gift cards or prepaid debit cards.

Do the boring stuff. It's what keeps the fun stuff alive.