Fake international call centre duping US citizens busted, 8 arrested
A fake call centre has been busted and ten mobile phones, seven laptops with six keyboards, six computer monitors, four CPUs and one Wi-Fi router with modem were recovered, said the police on Monday. They were accused of allegedly duping foreign nationals by posing as members of the technical support team of Amazon and PayPal, officials said on Monday.
Police said a few days ago information was received at Cyber Police Station that a fake international call centre was being operated at Okhla Vihar. Following the development, the police said the team planned to raid at said location under the direction of senior officials and found six persons having telephonic conversation with the foreigners.
After seeing the police party, they tried to run away from that place but all of them were apprehended by the police team, it said, adding that further investigation is under progress to nab their associates who were indulged with them in executing such nefarious activities.
“Two accused, including the owner of the call centre, were apprehended from their residence. Further investigation is underway to nab the associates of the accused,” said Esha Pandey, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Southeast District.
The accused told the police that in order to fulfill their needs and to earn quick money, they started this fake international call centre. They disclosed that they cheated several people (mainly USA citizens) by posing themselves as executive of Amazon Inc/Paypal, said police.
The accused said through technical means they managed to get their fake Ads of tech support containing their Virtual Toll Free numbers displayed on top of the browsed page and during browsing, the victims contacted them to redress their complaint or to get tech support and in lieu of providing tech support, the accused persons used to get them downloaded a fake anti-virus for which the payment was received in terms of various gift cards like Amazon, Google Pay, Target etc, said the police.
Thereafter, they redeem these gift cards into INR through Redeemer and get INR in their accounts, said the police, adding that from the investigation conducted so far, approximately transaction of Rs 35 lakh have been verified from computer seized from the accused persons.
