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RCMP arrest 'money mules' tied to scam calls from India

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Re: RCMP arrest 'money mules' tied to scam calls from India

#11

Post by dghughes »

reaperducer wrote: post #6
Huhty wrote: post #5

I get 2-3 calls like these every week. It's getting really bad.

Until about a month ago, I used to get 2-3 a day on my work phone. I gave up answering, and there's about 200 voicemails in there in a language I don't speak.

I was getting two calls every day from a number without any name. Every single day morning and evening even on weekends.

After months I answered and it was obviously a call center but it was from my bank. I'm in Canada and TD spammed me with phone calls for months every day just to ask if I wanted a travel credit card.

Even supposedly legitimate calls can be annoying and stupid.

Re: RCMP arrest 'money mules' tied to scam calls from India

#12

Post by dlivingston »

thbr99 wrote: post #9

The kind of stories that makes into HN Front page these days is deplorable. High time to write a filter of my own.

Can you explain what the issue is with this particular story? Otherwise, your comment doesn’t add much value to the broader discussion IMHO.

Re: RCMP arrest 'money mules' tied to scam calls from India

#13

Post by kerkeslager »

mysterypie wrote: post #7

How about putting a small tariff on every phone call originating from countries that do not shut down these fraudulent call centers? The tariff perhaps could be as small as 2 or 10 cents per call to make these operations unprofitable. I'm sure that the telecom operators in the foreign country could easily track down (or already know precisely where to find) the call centers. Once the fraud falls below a threshold the…

It may be a surprise to the HN "incentives are the only way to do anything" crowd, but there simply is not an incentive structure that will fix this problem, because nobody knows where the calls are coming from. Not the US, not the telcos, not the countries the calls are coming from, nobody. You can place the tariff on countries, and then the countries just have to accept the tariff because there's not a damn thing they can do about it as long as scammers can spoof phone numbers.

The converse of this is that it's pretty ridiculous to assume that countries have scammers in them because they're just tolerating them.

Sure, we could rush out a technical solution, but then it would run the risk of being broken rather quickly, and further it's important to not compromise the reliability of the phone system. Too many critical services rely on it. It's worth taking the time to do it right.

Last I heard, the FCC was in talks with telcos to finalize a solution, but I would expect it to take at least another year to implement and deploy it.

Until then, I guess we'll all have to deal with annoying scammers and comments by people who don't understand why spoofing makes their pet incentive idea irrelevant.

Re: RCMP arrest 'money mules' tied to scam calls from India

#14

Post by Scoundreller »

So the dude had a regular job so it doesn't seem like a kingpin of any kind. They've been tracking him for months, but they decided to take him down once he arrives for work, because ???

His wife is wanted too, but instead of going to where she is, they just call her and ask her to turn herself in?

By publicizing the arrest, the police likely killed their change to get the mule to lead to higher-up takedowns, no? Or have the police completely given up on shutting down the overseas operations?

Re: RCMP arrest 'money mules' tied to scam calls from India

#15

Post by dvtrn »

reaperducer wrote: post #6
Huhty wrote: post #5

I get 2-3 calls like these every week. It's getting really bad.

Until about a month ago, I used to get 2-3 a day on my work phone. I gave up answering, and there's about 200 voicemails in there in a language I don't speak.

3 a day? Last week I got six in the span of 93 MINUTES.

They all matched the area code and prefix of my number but the last four were always different. Block one another calls 12 minutes later.

I’ve had this number for 13 years, have ported it across carriers and it’s long been known by friends and family as the default way to find me. This problem was a mild nuisance years ago. It’s a plague now.

It may be time to finally give it up.

Re: RCMP arrest 'money mules' tied to scam calls from India

#16

Post by [deleted] »

kerkeslager wrote: post #13
mysterypie wrote: post #7

How about putting a small tariff on every phone call originating from countries that do not shut down these fraudulent call centers? The tariff perhaps could be as small as 2 or 10 cents per call to make these operations unprofitable. I'm sure that the telecom operators in the foreign country could easily track down (or already know precisely where to find) the call centers. Once the fraud falls below a threshold the…

It may be a surprise to the HN "incentives are the only way to do anything" crowd, but there simply is not an incentive structure that will fix this problem, because nobody knows where the calls are coming from. Not the US, not the telcos, not the countries the calls are coming from, nobody . You can place the tariff on countries, and then the countries just have to accept the tariff because there's not a damn thing…

[deleted]

Re: RCMP arrest 'money mules' tied to scam calls from India

#17

Post by smnrchrds »

treve wrote: post #10
mysterypie wrote: post #7

How about putting a small tariff on every phone call originating from countries that do not shut down these fraudulent call centers? The tariff perhaps could be as small as 2 or 10 cents per call to make these operations unprofitable. I'm sure that the telecom operators in the foreign country could easily track down (or already know precisely where to find) the call centers. Once the fraud falls below a threshold the…

The phone system seems pretty absurd. Just the fact that we can't trust originating phone numbers seems odd. There's lots of good ideas to go around, and there's so much in internet technology that could be applied to the phone system, but I'd love to read an article on why its hard to update the phone system.

Take the difficulties of IPv6 migration and remove the ticking clock of running out of IPv4 addresses. How long would the migration take? 10 years? 10000 years? I bet it would be closer to the latter than the former.

Re: RCMP arrest 'money mules' tied to scam calls from India

#18

Post by zyang »

Scoundreller wrote: post #14

So the dude had a regular job so it doesn't seem like a kingpin of any kind. They've been tracking him for months, but they decided to take him down once he arrives for work, because ??? His wife is wanted too, but instead of going to where she is, they just call her and ask her to turn herself in? By publicizing the arrest, the police likely killed their change to get the mule to lead to higher-up takedowns, no? Or…

That made me laugh, "unmarked vehicles tailed him, switching positions to avoid detection". Knowing Toronto drivers, I wouldn't be suspicious at all if someone tailgated me all the way to work.

Re: RCMP arrest 'money mules' tied to scam calls from India

#19

Post by rblatz »

zyang wrote: post #18
Scoundreller wrote: post #14

So the dude had a regular job so it doesn't seem like a kingpin of any kind. They've been tracking him for months, but they decided to take him down once he arrives for work, because ??? His wife is wanted too, but instead of going to where she is, they just call her and ask her to turn herself in? By publicizing the arrest, the police likely killed their change to get the mule to lead to higher-up takedowns, no? Or…

That made me laugh, "unmarked vehicles tailed him, switching positions to avoid detection". Knowing Toronto drivers, I wouldn't be suspicious at all if someone tailgated me all the way to work.

The best part is after the police got done playing James Bond the couple was released under their own recognizance.

Re: RCMP arrest 'money mules' tied to scam calls from India

#20

Post by unishark »

catalogia wrote: post #3

> ""We have disrupted the necessary flow of money from Canada to India, which will have a big impact on the operation and bottom line of scammers," Ogden said Friday, in announcing the charges." Perhaps so, but to what extent and for how long? How many other mules are there, and how long will it take them to find replacement mules to replace those arrested? I hope they throw the book at the mules, but I don't expect…

It seems like a small story about a small bust, but if you keep reading the story keeps going. They are directly going after the scammers too.

> "Police have since worked with Indian authorities to carry out a flurry of raids against suspected illegal call centres in the country. Canadian officials said Friday they know of 39 call centres, in the New Delhi and Noida area, that have been shut down.

"Ogden said still others will face police scrutiny and that he anticipates more arrests and charges "in the next few weeks."

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