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Police officials escort Sagar Thakkar to a police station, in Thane (Reuters Photo)

Fake call centre scam: Kingpin 'Shaggy' made 8 to 10 crore

Criminal techie Sagar Thakar (24), has confessed to making a small fortune of Rs 8-10 crore in the last two years before Thane Police busted his fake call centres in Mira Road and Ahmedabad in October 2016. Popular as Shaggy among his associates, he is understood to have given investigators a peek into his flashy lifestyle and love for fast cars, all the while claiming that a big chunk of his profits from the dark trade was robbed by his associates who were supervising and monitoring the 'con' call centres.Confessing his guilt to the police regarding his involvement in the criminal network, Shaggy , however, presented himself as a 'victim of circumstances', saying his humble family background and entrepreneurial skills were used by his mentors to lure him into the crime cartel run through misusing technology.“He claims that he started working from the age of 12, running small errands and later moved to selling cars online and was introduced to the fake call centre business by his friends,“ said a police officer.The fake call centre business started around four years ago from a small outlet in Navsari and as the business flourished he moved to Mira Road . “In the last two years, Shaggy found several financial irregularities in the business which is why he roped in his elder sister Reema to handle the finances,“ added the officer.“We are yet to thoroughly investigate him and all his claims will be verified.It is suspected that he might have run out of money which is why he chose to come back,“ informed the officer.The officer added that there are so far no traces of any of the technical data and Shaggy has probably used his technical know-how and deleted all the mobile phone data as well as his iPhone accounts. “It is difficult to trace the money in such circumstances as he deleted all the contacts from his iPhone and also deleted his Apple ID. We have seized his two new phones which have no data. Efforts are being made to retrieve the deleted data,“ informed the officer.Police found that on October4 at around 11am, he had landed in Ahmedabad and went back at around 11.30pm following the raids at the Mira Road call centres. “He went to Dubai which he felt was his safe haven as he had some sort of commercial set-up there. In between, he fled to Thailand as he came to know Thane Police might chase him to Dubai. But after a few days he returned to Dubai and settled there for some time,“ said a police officer.