Scammer Call Centers

Homeland Security
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We all know the bulk of the scam calls we get are from India. They steal so much American money, especially from the elderly. They harass, mock, threaten people multiple times a day- every day. Our government should give an ultimatum to crack down on and stop these highly organized criminals- who also work with criminals in the US, or lose US support.

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I agree. It does not take a genius to set the scammers up, reverse their connection, and identify where they are. There are numerous YouTubers - amateur investigators - who have done this quite easily.

There are several issues here that need to be addressed:

  1. The police agencies in India are horribly corrupt. Even with mountains of evidence handed to them on a silver platter, the scammers are rarely prosecuted.
  2. There are networks of mules and controllers in the US that collect the proceeds and forward them to the scammer. These are criminals - some are unwitting, some think they are legit, some are even being extorted to participate, and others are career scammers themselves. The frequently use short term rentals like AirBnB or VRBO to rent a place, and use that as their drop for a week. Then they move on. The amateur investigators have managed to get a few arrested, but we need clear policy from Congress and the US DoJ to properly deal with these people.
  3. Most of these companies have a legit front doing legit work. The people who need to go down and go down hard are the owners - and most of the time, we know who they are.

The first thing President Trump can do is use the bully pulpit to warn Americans about these scam operations. At least half of America will listen to him.

The second thing he should do is pressure PM Modi in India to crack down on these call centers - tell him that if he wants H1B or student visas to his citizens, or few tariffs on his products, the Indian government needs to smash these scammers. And we need to see results - assets including computers seized, and maybe extraditions of the owners of these companies to the US to stand trial. Reparations to the victims.

Another thing we can threaten is to reinstitute an Operator service between India and the US - no more direct dial. No US toll free numbers that terminate in India.

If these amateur investigators can find them, why can’t the FBI?

We shouldn’t be screwing around.

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