A group of 18 conmen running a call centre operation from an office in Ahmedabad have been involved in scamming unsuspecting Britons. Ahmedabad police have told Mail Today that they are unaware of the racket.  

These scamsters pretend to be from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HRMC) department and accuse unsuspecting victims of tax fraud. HRMC has had to deal with 330 fraud cases in a span of six months leading up to January 2019. Targets are selected at random and are warned about unpaid tax and impending court proceedings if they do not pay up immediately. 

A Daily Mail report shows that some people have lost almost 20,000 pounds from the fear of court cases. Many calls are made to appear from within the United Kingdom and called ID displays numbers originating within the country. The main target group for these scams are the elderly and vulnerable.

It is also reported that Americans and Australians have also been targeted and the FBI has sent agents to India to investigate the matter and British authorities haven’t taken action yet.

The HMRC spokesperson has told Daily Mail that the scams escalated in July 2018 and up to 4,000 fraud cases a month were reported from across the country. Daily Mail also reports that spoils of the scam are shared among the 18 members of the racket and the total amounts to over 1 million pounds a year.

Action Fraud, the national fraud and cyber reporting centre of the UK had said that half the fraud cases dealt over a year came from abroad and 10% of the total came from within India. 

One of the accused Samkit Jain when asked about his actions has said – “Why should I feel bad? Money is important to life”.