Mumbai-based entrepreneur Jagdish Kanani was arrested in Borivali on Sunday night in connection with the multi-million dollar fake call centre scam case, unnamed officials told PTI on Monday. The 33-year-old man allegedly "mentored the main accused", Sagar Thakkar alias Shaggy, in the racket where several Indian tele-callers defrauded United States taxpayers. Police are still on the lookout for Thakkar.

Kanani worked in a Business Process Outsourcing firm in the US, where he devised methods to con loan defaulters. Thakkar allegedly picked up the tricks of the trade while working with him in Ahmedabad and Mumbai. Unnamed officials said Kanani planned the racket and guided Thakkar through executing the scam. Initial interrogations of the arrested accused led the investigators to Kanani.

On October 4, more than 500 call centre staffers across Maharashtra’s Thane district were detained by police for allegedly defrauding US citizens who were loan defaulters. The defaulters were asked to divulge their financial and bank details and were threatened with legal action if they did not do so, the report said. The call centre employees would then siphon off money from their accounts.

Officials said that more than Rs 1 crore was stolen by them on a daily basis. On October 15, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation started collaborating with Indian law enforcers.

At least 70 people have been arrested for their links to the racket, while another 630 have been booked under the Indian Penal Code, IT Act and Indian Telegraph Act. Officials alleged that the son of a senior Gujarat-based IPS officer was also involved in the racket.

Five call centres were shut down in Ahmedabad during the raids, but investigators have noted that they have resumed operations recently. Police personnel confiscated a server on which the accused stored their database.