On October 21, 2020, in the Northern District of Georgia, Indian-based Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider E Sampark and its Director, Gaurav Gupta, were indicted in a first-of-its-kind indictment for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud in connection with facilitating tens of millions of scam calls to American taxpayers on behalf of India-based phone scammers.

According to the court documents, between approximately May 2015 through June 2020, Gupta directed and operated E Sampark, a VoIP company that allegedly sent calls from India-based call centers to victims of the United States, both directly and through VoIP providers located in the United States. The scammers purported to be legitimate U.S. Government agencies and businesses and misled victims over the phone. The scammers allegedly used multiple frauds including IRS impersonation, Social Security impersonation, and loan scams. As a part of the IRS impersonation scam, the scammers posed as IRS or Treasury officials and defrauded U.S. residents into believing they owed money to the IRS or face arrest and fined if they did not pay alleged back taxes, fines, and fees immediately.

Gupta and E Sampark maintained approximately 60 servers in Florida that the company used at times to connect India-based callers with American taxpayers. The servers contained more than 130,000 recordings of scam calls, including robocall voicemail recordings, and conversations between the India-based scammers and U.S. victims. American taxpayers suffered financial losses of more than $20 million as a result of the scam.

If convicted, Gupta could receive a statutory maximum penalty of 30 years' imprisonment and/or a fine of up to $1 million.

Source:  The facts in this case narrative come from the following publicly available document: N.D. Ga., Indict, October 21, 2020.