Good news today from the RCMP. After lengthy investigations, there’s finally some definitive action and arrests against these scammers impersonating the CRA, threatening and scamming vulnerable taxpayers into paying them money believing their claims that the consumer owed taxes to CRA.
As reported by CBC News today in the following excerpt, police have raided call centres in India linked to the so-called CRA scam, where Canadians received calls telling them they owed taxes – and must pay or be jailed. ‘We’re going to work jointly, collaboratively to take you down,’ says RCMP Peter Payne, regarding the force’s work with Indian officials to stop the scammers. (CBC)
Over the past two weeks, Indian police have been bursting into suspected illegal call centres, arresting everyone in sight and seizing troves of equipment used to carry out phone fraud aimed at foreigners. Hundreds of Canadians are among the victims of the so-called “CRA scam,” and their combined losses — from just two of the raided offices — are likely to be at least in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“This is just the beginning, says Chief Ajay Pal Sharma of the Noida Station. “More illegal call centres are running in the city, which will be busted soon. We will be conducting more raids.”
Police say they arrested 28 people in just one of their sweeps, including two seen as the kingpins of the operation. Most are in their twenties.
They are expected to face fraud-related charges, which could result in jail time.
The raids were triggered by a visit from Canadian police to Noida, a suburb of India’s capital New Delhi, following a CBC Marketplace investigation that revealed how and where many of the scammers were operating. An RCMP officer based in India, in cooperation with the FBI, approached Indian authorities to act.
To read the full article, click here.
Kudos to the RCMP and Indian police force!