US Department of Justice indict 15 defendants and and Five India-Based Call Centers

ref: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga/pr/15-defen ... am-targeting-us
Scammers impersonating officials from the Internal Revenue Service or individuals offering fictitious payday loans.

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In connection with the scheme, seven individuals were arrested yesterday in the United States. Seven defendants and five call centers in India were also charged for their alleged involvement.

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Call Centers:
Excellent Solutions BPO,
ADN Infotech Pvt. Ltd.,
Infoace BPO Solutions Pvt. Ltd.,
Adore Infosource, Inc.,
Zurik BPO Services Pvt. Ltd.,

15 people named, but yet again all those "pissants" are left out to seek employment at another call center to carry on the experiences they have acquired.
The numbers keep coming up small in recent busts, but at least "something" is being done. Better a little than nothing at all.

I for one am pleased to see that the US is cracking down on these telescammers!

So far in 2018 the Justice Department has been bringing down these criminals in record numbers. Another recent example here: https://800notes.com/forum/ta-1095393f6ffc94d ... 740074060762127

It is unfortunate that US Telecoms, plagued by greed and fueled by revenues derived from the likes of DIP fees and revenue sharing, are not about to take the foreign telescammers to task, even though they have the technology to ascertain the calls are pure crime!

How much longer can the Telecoms continue to hide behind their huge lobby… the TIA (https://www.tiaonline.org)? How much longer will the public (victims of the foreign telescammers) put up with the corporate greed of the Telecoms?

I hope the future holds many more ‘collaborative’ US Department of Justice offensives aimed at bringing down the overseas telecriminals, especially in India where telecrime has become vehement with VoIP technologies.

"even though they have the technology to ascertain the calls are pure crime!" I keep reading about this technology on this site but no one has ever stated exactly what it is nor have they ever been able to provide any documentation that it actually exists, such as a name, the company that makes it, a website, anything. Want to be the first?

Heres a good start for you to read. The Technology exists within the phone service providers. Its only used by Law Enforcement and not available for use by the general public.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malicious_caller_identification

I'm betting "Question" didn't actually expect a reply. And an informative one at that.

I don't think that was the kind of technology either poster was thinking about. That is simply the trace function and provides leads for law enforcement to investigate but even that data often leads nowhere or to an overseas origination.  However, the No More RoBo analysis technology used to preemptively block calls could be widely implemented by the TelCos in conjunction with the call trace data to stop the majority of these type calls. Some TelCos are using a similar heuristics approach then flag the calls as SPAM? or SCAM on Caller ID but still let the calls ring through.  They could be doing a lot better.

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I don't think that was the kind of technology either poster was thinking about.

I am not sure what they were thinking about exactly, I just gave "Question" a starting point to discover that the technology  (as he quoted) "....to ascertain the calls are pure crime...." exists.  I believe what I posted was dead on for my assumption of what I believed was asked and fits the thread Topic.
What you proposed seems to merely be a better blocker system. As for my opinion on that bit, I think they should only allow spoofing for those who sign up as a necessity only, such as Battered Womens groups, Abortion Clinics, Witness Protection, etc. They could block everyone else from being able to spoof the CID. But now I am going off-topic.

Yeah, that Wkipedia article has been flagged for lacking any sources. And amongst the phone technology it mentions VOIP is conspicuous by its absence.

Unfortunately, the *57 system has no way to ascertain either in advance or after the fact that a call is pure crime.  It is only activated when a subscriber receives a call that they believe is criminal in nature and intend to file a police report.  The meta data that is collected cannot be used by itself to determine if a call is criminal in nature or not. That needs additional investigation by law enforcement and is beyond what Telcos can do.  What it does do is provide the true number doing the calling since it does not rely on the CNAM or CNUM data of Caller ID but uses the ANI and network routing and billing data to correctly ID the source of the call.

Thats great if you have a better explanation for Question's question, as I have no interest in learning about the literal terminologies, incomplete Wiki or specifics of the internal phone system structure. I'm sticking with what i wrote as my answer. :)

PS: I haven't yet read anyone explain the "technology to ascertain the calls are pure crime", so perhaps its not my answer that requires focusing on, but maybe the sentence structure itself, as I now see that possibly the answer is NONE.

{technology to ascertain the calls are pure crime} {provide any documentation that it actually exists}

Wire Tap and Call Trace are existing technologies that can be used to (ascertain) if a caller committed a (crime).  I'm sure anyone can find documentation on the internet about both. The word "pure" should be omitted, since that is as debatable as the word "perfect" is towards the context of its meaning.

Here are some more links to articles discussing what Telecoms could do to stop the onslaught of fraudulent calls.

https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/p ... -arent-doing-it

https://www.wired.com/story/robocall-getting-worse-but-help-is-here

There is no single magic bullet that can identify and stop the large volume of these calls. Tools such as Wireshark and Cisco’s Unified Communications Manager (CallManager), in conjunction with technologies mention by others and in the articles cited above, can be leveraged to help identify and ‘treat’ telescammer VoIP calls.

Less than a year ago, the FCC’s new ruling gave Telecoms the go ahead to block most of these calls. The question is why haven’t they started?

I have read all the posts in this thread.  After the first sentence in Jim-LA's post on October 10, pretty much everything is off topic which is par for any forum thread here (and yes this post will be way, way off topic as well).

So, let's break this down.  Jim-La stated “even though they have the technology to ascertain the calls are pure crime! “ which is, in my estimation not possible.  It is not possible to ascertain what any call is before it is answered (or is this like “Minority Report” where someone thinks of committing a crime and gets arrested before it occurs?), and I have never heard of “pure crime”.  I know there is no legal definition of “pure crime” that I can find.  After that the rest of the post is mostly soap box rant.

Then we go to the *57 article.  That again does not ascertain anything prior to the call being picked up (sorry Mike).  You must first receive the call and then after having determined that it is unwanted in some way, hang up, hit *57, and file a police report where they will hopefully start an investigation.  I would think that they would only use those resources for real crimes and not simply because someone did not want to receive a phone call, and no, I don't think all unwanted phone calls should receive the attention and limited resources our tax dollars pay for.

Then we have a discussion on Wire Tapping and Call Trace (which is pretty close to what *57 does).  Wire Tapping generally requires a court order, and in order to get that you need to show probable cause.  Even if it did not need a court order, what are we going to do, wire tap every phone in America?  As to Call Trace, I am not convinced that it is 100% reliable when numbers are spoofed over VOIP lines.

Now let us look at the two linked articles.  In the first, that popular call blocking service Jim-LA likes to advertise does not work for everyone and is not 100% effective.  The second, which is only in Canada, appears to have some flaws.  First, the number has to be identified by people who received the call so some people will initially be inconvenienced.  I also see a problem with that since there are people who simply want to report every number regardless of who is calling.  I experienced that using a call blocker on my cell phone and finding out that it was blocking calls from my doctor's who were calling from the hospital because people had reported the central number as spam or scam.  So that is certainly not a reliable way of blacklisting a call.  I see a lot of stuff there that probably could work but will never be able to stop all the calls.

The second article pretty much regurgitates what the first said.  It also mentions two possible solutions which have not be completely tested as of the date of the article and are not available for use.

I have seen lots of complaints about the government not doing anything.  They need to pass more laws, even though laws do not stop any crime from being committed.  They need to make harsher penalties such as actual jail time.  Again not a real deterrent to crime, and the proof of that lies in the penalties for murder where you can either get life in prison or the death penalty, yet there were 15, 936 murders last year.  Proof that harsher penalties and laws do not stop crimes.  Then we have the apathy of people who always want someone else to solve their problems instead of doing something on their own.  They complain about calls and having to take extra measures to block calls, yet say not one word about the inconvenience of having to lock their houses and cars up or having to install burglar alarms to prevent thefts.  How come they are not complaining that the government is not doing enough to prevent those crimes, or any crime for that matter?  How come they are not using the tools available to them to make the calls stop when they know who is calling.  For instance, you can send a certified, return receipt letter for less than $7.00 at the time of this writing (Post Office wants to raise rates I see).  “What” they will say?  We have to take the time to write a letter?  Too much trouble!  How about using the ability to sue these businesses?  Oh, too much trouble, too much time, I don't really need the money!  Well in my estimation those people are actually contributing to the problem and enabling more phone calls to be made.  Yes, we can't send letters or sue foreign entities, but we can do both to domestic entities.  We have several people here hawking the “keep them on the phone, get as much information as you can, and cost them money to put them out of business”.  I know of only one so far that actually follows through after that and takes them to court, which is a ton more costly then the few dollars they loose otherwise.

Now currently, technology that is currently available that is more reliable than Caller ID is ANI and should be replacing CNAM and CNUM.  However, no matter what we come up with, crooks will find a way around it.  As my parents taught me, anything one man can invent, another man can defeat.

Now, let the trolls start attacking me, as I am sure they will.  Oh, and yes this did turn into a soap box rant, but, hey if others can do it, why can't I?

Well, I found this entire soapbox display to be a bit entertaining as well as a little educational towards what people will come up with when someone posts something that is really subjected to what the reader interprets it to mean.

For me, I thought possible troll who saw a sentence that had no real foundation other than speculations of what it meant. I gave an answer that I believed suited it and expected that to be the end.  Kat got it and I thank you for noticing. :)
For some strange reason the focus of the discussion went towards my answer setting the stage for its meaning, rather than about the ill-conceived sentence itself.

My interpretation is: Technology that can help determine if a crime was committed over the phone.

Not "technology that can catch a criminal" or "technology that can determine its a criminal and block them" or whatever else people have thought up for its meaning. Refuting someone else's interpretation of a meaningless sentence is humorously entertaining to me.  I stand behind my answer even after all has been said here, since it is a sentence that is subject to interpretation by the reader.

It is not a wasted discussion though, since it does reveal how something so irrelevant can become a topic within a topic and we get a glimpse of what others have to say. It is a little educational, not so much towards the discussed off topic subject, but observations of the turn of events.