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HOW ONE GIFT CARD SCAM NETTED $35,500 OVER 11 HOURS A woman in suburban Atlanta bought about $35,500 in gift cards redeemable at well-known merchants — Nordstrom, Target, Sephora and the
video game retailer GameStop — and fraudsters took every last nickel, authorities say. The woman’s 11-hour ordeal began one day in November 2019 after she was inundated with phone calls from
people posing as federal agents, according to a federal indictment in Atlanta. She was told that her that Social Security number had been compromised, that there was a warrant for her
arrest in Texas and that “she should tell no one about the purported investigation,” the indictment says. Warned that her assets would be frozen and told she needed to “protect” them, she
was directed to buy multiple gift cards. Fraudsters kept her on the phone the entire time, authorities said, and she gave fraudsters the cards’ serial numbers and PINs but got “nothing in
return,” the indictment says. VICTIMS LOST $20 MILLION-PLUS The woman, from Marietta, Georgia, is not alone. The defendants allegedly passed tens of millions of scam calls from India to
residents in the U.S., leading to more than $20 million in victim losses during a five-year period that ended in June 2020, the indictment says. The scam callers purported to be with
government agencies or businesses. They left U.S. victims voicemail and robocall messages with callback numbers that connected them to foreign fraudsters. Then, scammers in India would try
to extort the potential victims, the indictment says. LIES, LIES AND MORE LIES Sometimes the scammers purported to be from the Internal Revenue Service and said victims owed back taxes. Or
they touted fictitious loans and demanded upfront fees. Or they threatened victims with foreclosure of their homes. The defendants are Gaurav Gupta and a business called E Sampark, which is
in Gujarat, India, and provides Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls. Gupta is a director of the firm. If he is convicted and travels to the U.S., Gupta would face immediate arrest,
according to a prosecutor, who noted the U.S. has an extradition treaty with India, so convicted defendants also may be subject to extradition. In a related action, a company in Florida that
provided computer servers to the operation has been ordered by a judge to stop helping perpetuate the scheme, authorities said. “The defendants bombarded American consumers with scam calls,
causing emotional and financial devastation, including to vulnerable and elderly individuals,” says Byung J. “BJay” Pak, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, where the case
was brought. Pak said such bad actors would be probed and “brought to justice.” —Katherine Skiba