On September 6, around 1.50 pm, a new immigrant to the US from India, who wishes to be identified as AS, received a call purportedly from the American emergency service 911. “My phone ID just showed ‘Emergency Number’. I picked it up, curious to know why they would call me. And my ordeal started,” AS told ET.From the earliest reports available in public records, this is a scam that is now five years old. A scam where a person posing as an officer from the state or federal police of the US, or belonging to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service ( USCIS ), or the Internal Revenue Service (depending on the status and income of the victim), calls people, usually of Indian origin, and threatens them with instant deportation for either not submitting a form, or not updating it or not complying with tax payments, all of which is imaginary.The scam supposedly ended in June this year, when the US Justice Department issued a statement about the sentencing of 21 people and detailing what had been done to stop it. The New York Times reported: “With stiff sentences for 21 conspirators last week in the United States and a round of indictments in India, the Justice Department says it has broken up what appeared to be the nation’s first large-scale, multinational telephone fraud operation.”The report claimed that an 85-year-old woman of Indian origin paid up to $12,300 (Rs 8.88 lakh at current exchange rate) to scamsters threatening deportation for tax violations. She was one among 15,000 victims that the scam covered. It quoted US attorney general Jeff Sessions stating that “The sentences represent the culmination of the first ever large-scale, multijurisdiction prosecution targeting the India call centre scam industry.”“I had no idea of any of this,” AS confessed. “But the scam has obviously not ended. It was just sheer fluke that I have not got swindled in the same way.” AS got the call at home. “A person calling himself Sajaad said he was calling from 911 and that I had not updated the DS 260 form when I entered the US as a permanent immigrant a few months ago. I said I was not aware of any such thing and that immigration had not informed me about this. He said 15 rules were posted by Customs at the entrance and that I should have followed them. I was confused, I didn’t remember seeing anything at the immigration counter at the airport.Then, he said, my permanent resident card was frozen and I would be deported. He referred to it as the green card, a term used only by immigrants, not native Americans, but I didn’t think of it at that time. He said an arrest warrant was out in my name.”AS was badly rattled, but continued to talk to Sajaad, who claimed that he would sort the problem out. “He started taking down personal details, as though to verify. I gave some, but when he wanted to know credit card details, I got uncomfortable. I said, ‘I don’t want to give financial details on the phone, please tell me where to come and meet you, we can discuss this.’ He hung up instantly. But my fear and doubt remained that my permanent resident card was frozen and I frantically searched on the Internet to see what I could do and whom I could call. It was only after reading blog after blog about this fraud that I realised that I had been incredibly lucky.”AS filed a police complaint and there the case rests. The Raleigh police have issued a tracking number, but nothing further has happened, AS said. “Yes, I read online now that the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) has issued warnings, the USCIS takes online complaints, there are many news reports about it. But shouldn’t this be something that every immigrant and H-1B visa entrant to the US be warned about by the Indian embassy or the ministry of external affairs,” AS asked.The targets of the scam do include some Canadian citizens. But all news reports and information available in public domain make it clear that the scam originates from call centres in India and that the main targets are Indian citizens who have moved to the US, either on a work visa or on a green card. This reporter, a new immigrant from India, also got a similar call about a month after entering the US. Several blog posts and complaints on the websites of the USCIS, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and others point out that the scamsters have more information and personal details about the victims than what is available in public domain. Many also state that they have received this scam call immediately after they posted on Indian and American job sites, seeking employment and giving email and phone details.“The accent was definitely Indian overlaid with a fake American accent,” AS said. This ties in with multiple comments by victims on blogs and online sites like H1BWiki and the FTC official site for consumer complaints that the scam is not rooted out as thought earlier with the arrest of the so-called mastermind, Sagar “Shaggy” Thakkar, in Thane, Maharashtra in April 2017, or of the 32 contractors in five Ahmedabad-based call centres and the sentencing of three US-based Indian-origin racketeers, announced by the US Justice Department since. A person, who identified herself as SP, posted on June 16 on the FTC’s site saying that her husband and she had become a victim of the scam on that day. “I got a call from 911 saying there is a case against me as I have not filled (the) AR-11 form. I told them I need to talk to my employer as I have never heard of anyone talking about it …The call went on for 4 hours. They even made me come from office to home. And they told me my husband has been already arrested as we both have different answers to the same question. At the same time, they said to my husband that your wife is arrested,” she wrote. SP said she was asked to get iTunes cards, but since there was no Apple store nearby, the caller asked her to buy two Google Play gift cards from a Safeway store, each loaded with $500. “Here I guessed that something is wrong. And the store person told (me, looking at my panic face), ‘If you are doing it because someone told you, just hang up’.”But SP wrote that she could not ignore the call as she was unable to contact her husband. According to her, they had blocked her numbers somehow and she even got a call from her husband’s number, informing her that an officer had taken the phone. “They were tracking our GPS. Fortunately, we had a way to meet. I will file a detailed complaint with (the) FTC,” she wrote, warning others about the tricks by scamsters: “THEY WILL TELL YOU TO SWITCH OFF YOUR DATA AND WIFI AS YOU HAVE A CASE GOING ON AND YOU ARE UNDER SURVEILLANCE.”According to the post, they told her husband: “We wanted to do something big. But you are lucky to get away with $1,000. Do you want to join our team?” They also dropped her a voice message, she said, asking her to go to the federal office in Washington if she wanted to look for her husband. Another person, Manju, said on the H1Bwiki site on May 9 that she got a call from 911. “It is crazy! The person said he is a sheriff and the story goes on like one of those in the blogs and comments. He got mad at me when I mentioned about my attorney and started threatening me more. That’s when I hung up.”This reporter, after realising the extent of the scam, sought clarifications from the Indian embassy in Washington DC and the external affairs ministry in New Delhi, through phone calls and emails, asking what was being done to alert and warn people moving from India to the US with regard to this scam. There has not been any response so far. The Indian embassy has, however, put out an advisory about fraud calls on its website, but this deals with spoofing calls purportedly from its officials. “It has been brought to the notice of the embassy that some fraudsters are spoofing Embassy of India telephone lines to make calls aimed at cheating people. Some of these calls are shown as being from the embassy telephone numbers (202-939-7000) while others simply use embassy identity.These fraudsters either seek personal information like credit card details, etc., or try to extort money from Indian nationals by inter alia claiming that there are errors in their passports, visa forms, immigration forms, etc. which could be rectified by paying money, and at the same time warning that the socalled errors, if not rectified, could result in deportation of the individual to India or their imprisonment in USA. In some cases, these fraudsters have also falsely claimed that they received such privileged information from the embassy or other authorities in India. Visa applicants have also received such calls purporting to be from the embassy.” “I am happy at least this advisory is there. But a lot more needs to be done, if such scams don’t continue to get victims,” said AS, who is trying to connect with top individuals in the Indian community in the US, across language associations, to create more awareness.There are multiple websites and fora on which the matter is discussed. But AS said: “The awareness needs to come from India, from where people are coming here with dreams and fears. It is the Indian government that needs to do more to help its citizens in the US.”