Noida police bust fake call center targeting foreign nationals, 19 held
The Sector 63 police has uncovered a gang operating a fraudulent call centre that targeted foreign nationals by tampering with their computer systems, Central Noida’s deputy commissioner of police Shakti Mohan Avasthy said on Wednesday, adding that 19 members of the gang were arrested from the call centre.
The arrests were made last week after police raided a call centre in B-87, Block H of Sector 63 a little after midnight. Among those detained were 14 men and five women, said police.
During interrogation, the suspects admitted to sending bugs into foreign nationals’ computer systems/laptops, which disrupted their functioning. They then sent a pop-up message, prompting the victims to contact them through a link. Using such interaction, facilitated by IVR calling, they gained the victim’s trust and, through software and remote control tools, accessed their bank account details, Awasthy said.
“They allegedly defrauded victims using fake documents in the name of the Federal Reserve System, tricking them into transferring money to cryptocurrency accounts. After the call, data would be deleted to avoid traces,” he said.
During the raid, the police seized a large number of electronic devices, including 38 laptops and chargers, four ethernet media converters, four routers, 30 headphones, 11 ID cards, one forged federal reserve document, and six mobile phones.
“These operations targeted American nationals, leveraging fear related to social security offences using IVR software. The centre owner orchestrated these activities, controlling the computers remotely, and provided IP addresses to facilitate the operations through a fraudulent software,” an officer from the Sector 63 police station said, asking not to be named.
A case under sections 319(2) (impersonation), 318(4) (fraud), 316(2) (criminal breach of trust), 338 (forgery), 336(3) (electronic records forgery), 340(2) (Forged document used as genuine), 61(2) (Criminal conspiracy), 111 (organized crime) BNS and 66D of the IT Act (personation using a computer resource) had been slapped against all arrested suspects.
