BRITONS FLEECED BY FAKE TAXMEN

EXPOSED: Swindlers in India who terrorise 10,000 UK residents a day via landlines with threat of prison

THE conmen behind a scam robbing taxpayers of millions of pounds can be exposed by the Daily Mail today.

Working from a ramshackle office in India, they pose as HMRC officials to terrorise up to 10,000 Britons a day.

Victims are told they owe tax and face arrest and imprisonment if they do not pay up instantly. Some have lost as much as £20,000.

HMRC staff had to deal with 60,000 landline repayment fraud cases in the six months to January – 360 per cent up on the previous half-year. However, not all the victims will have come forward.

The fraudsters boasted they did not fear being tracked down by British authorities. But the Mail has passed details of the Ahmedabad-based gang to Indian police who have pledged action.

HMRC investigators have also

asked to see our evidence. Our investigation also revealed that:

Indian scam call centres are involved in more than one in ten reported frauds in the UK;

Men using just laptops and the BT phonebook are making hundreds of thousands of pounds a year from UK victims;

Many are tricked into making multiple bank payments after being told the original transfer did not go through;

The gang buys British phone numbers – even copying the HMRC phone number – to make the scam appear genuine;

Fraudsters operating overseas request payments into British bank accounts including NatWest to make them appear authentic.

The revelations come in the wake of Money Mail’s Stop the Bank Scammers campaign, which is calling for action against a fraud epidemic costing families £1million a day.

Our team infiltrated the 18-strong gang at its fake call centre in the northern Indian city of Ahmedabad. The scammers select targets randomly from the BT online phone directory and call them posing as HMRC officials.

Following a script, they warn about impending court proceedings for unpaid tax and demand immediate payment.

One fraudster said: ‘We threaten them. Once they feel the fear they’re gonna pay.’

Victims told the Mail of the huge financial and emotional toll of losing up to £20,000.

Other gangs operating from Ahmedabad use similar scams to target American and Australian victims. The FBI has sent agents to tackle the issue but Indian police said they had had no contact with the British authorities.

Charlie Elphicke, a Tory member of the Commons Treasury committee, said: ‘Scammers should not be allowed to get away with fleecing hard-working British citizens.

‘Phone fraud often targets the most vulnerable people, leaving them out of pocket and extremely distressed. This country has access to the most sophisticated police expertise and technology. We should be using it to crack down on anyone committing these cowardly crimes – no matter what corner of the world they are operating from.’

Labour MP John Mann, who also sits on the committee, said: ‘It’s a very big problem which the Foreign Office should be taking action on.

‘Targets the most vulnerable’

‘India sells lots of goods to us. Ministers and embassies should be pushing the Indian authorities to clamp down on the fraudsters.’

Baroness Altmann, a former pensions minister, said her mother, who is in her 80s, was petrified after the gang called to say they would be sending officers to arrest her.

‘The British police and Government should definitely be doing their utmost to prevent these gangs from accessing the private phone numbers of British citizens,’ she said.

‘It is really frightening that vulnerable elderly people can receive such phone calls, purporting to come from the authorities, which frighten them into transferring thousands of pounds to thieves without realising they are being scammed. It would make a huge difference if the scammers were stopped from using bogus UK phone numbers and the telecoms industry and the Government should introduce measures to prevent people from being able to hide their genuine identity.’

Action Fraud, the national fraud and cyber reporting centre, said around half the cases it dealt with came from abroad and at least 10 per cent involved India.

As well as unpaid tax, the scams included computer software service fraud and calls concerning loans and PPI refunds.

Many of the calls are made to appear to originate from the United Kingdom, with a British phone number often being displayed on the victim’s home or mobile phone.

A spokesman for HMRC said: ‘ We became aware of phone scams using the threat of HMRC action escalating during 2018, with a significant increase to over 4,000 reports a month from July 2018. In the 12 months to February 2019 we received 73,382 reports of suspicious HMRC phone calls, and from that reported over 400 unique numbers to carriers to have the number removed from use.

‘HMRC only call individuals for payment of a debt they are already aware of. Our advice is that if you are in any doubt about an incoming call, end the conversation and contact HMRC online or use Action Fraud.’

City of London Police, which specialises in fraud and cyber crime, said the international nature of crime made it difficult to trace payments and suspects. ‘Suspects that have been involved in call centres of this nature can often move on very quickly,’ said a spokesman.