FBI’s South Asia Head revealed that the target of these scam calls are mostly adults who are scammed under the disguise of tech support, business investments and romance related calls
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) just revealed that illegal call and scam centers in India have stolen more than $10 billion from American citizens, the targets mostly included elderly US citizens that are scammed under the disguise of tech support.
According to the details revealed by the FBI, call center scamming has been on the rise, especially this year. Just in the 11 months of 2022, Americans have been scammed for more than $10.2 billion, this is a drastic increase from last year since US citizens only lost $6.9 billion to call center scams last year.
Now that the situation is getting out of hand, the FBI has decided to appoint a permanent delegate at the US Embassy in New Delhi. This new delegate will work together with Indian law enforcement agencies to crack down on these scam call centers.
FBI’s South Asia head and legal attaché with the US embassy in New Delhi, Suhel Daud said that these scammers steal billions from the elderly and call under the disguise of tech support, romance-related calls, business investments, etc.
Daud also went on to reveal numbers and said that the FBI complaint portal recorded 0.85 million complaints in 2021 and 0.78 million this year. He also revealed that $3 billion out of the $10 billion were stolen in the name of investments, $2.4 billion in business emails, $1.2 billion in personal data breaches, $1 billion in romance, and $781 million in tech support calls.
Talking about the sensitivity of the relation between US and India, Daud said that while the matter doesn’t concern national security, these scams are affecting India’s image in the US.
