4,500 People, Rs 100 Crore: Delhi Police Nabs 54 Fake Callers Duping Foreigners

New Delhi: In one of the biggest crackdown against fake call centres duping foreigners, Cyber Crime Unit of Delhi Police arrested 54 callers who have duped more than 4,500 people aboard and have minted close to Rs 100 crores.

The call centre based in the Moti Nagar area of Delhi targeted foreign nationals and illegally induced them to transfer money through Bitcoins and gift cards.

According to the police, through this call centre callers were dialling people in the US and other countries impersonating as law enforcement officers and induced them to transfer a large amount of money after threatening them with legal action.

During the raid, police have seized 89 desktops and the server set-up at the centre. A total of 54 people were arrested which included nine women. The four-team leaders who were also called ‘closers’ as they ensured that the victim ends up transferring money were also arrested. They were identified as Gurmil Singh, Raunak, Jyotika and Yashpal.

The initial investigation has revealed that the owner of this call centre is managing the operations from Dubai.

Modus-Operandi:

• During questioning accused told cops that they used to contact foreign nationals based in the US and other countries impersonating various law enforcement agencies and other government agencies such as the social security administration, the drug enforcement administration (DEA), the US Marshals Service, etc.
• The caller used to scare them that their bank accounts and other assets are being frozen as their details have been found at a crime scene and there are bank accounts running in their names using which illegal transactions have been made to drug cartels in Mexico and Colombia. They also threatened the victims with immediate arrest.
• Once the victim used to become apprehensive, they gave them two options. One was to go for a legal action in which first the victim would be arrested and their assets would be seized and only later on could the victim fight it out in the court. The second option is to go for an Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) which would be faster and simpler.
• When the victim used to choose for ADR, the caller asked them to share all the details of their assets, including bank accounts and the amount of money in those accounts.
• In the next step, the victim was told that there is only one way to safeguard their assets; they would have to either buy Bitcoins or Google gift cards worth all the money in their accounts. If the victim agrees to buy Bitcoins, the accused induce them to convert all the money in their accounts into Bitcoins and transfer the same to the wallets operated by the gang, saying that it is a safe government wallet.
• If the victim agrees to buy gift cards, they induced them to share the number of the cards stating that it will be linked to their new bank accounts and thus, be safe. This has been corroborated by the written script recovered from the possession of the callers.