Kolkata, Oct. 1 -- In a major crackdown on cyber fraud networks, Bidhannagar City Police busted an illegal call centre operating from a rented corporate-style office in New Town, under the jurisdiction of Techno City Police Station.
The operation led to the arrest of 24 people, including 13 women and 11 men, who were allegedly involved in defrauding foreign nationals.
Acting on a tip-off, a team from the Bidhannagar Cyber Crime Police Station raided the call centre styled as 'Xtra source Pvt. Ltd.' that was running in the 3B block of Eco Space. During the raid, the call centre employees were caught red-handed making fraudulent calls to the USA.
According to senior police officials, the syndicate primarily targeted citizens of the USA using a classic tech-support scam model. The operators sent bulk e-mails and pop-up alerts and also used to make calls to the victims to dupe them on the pretext of providing technical support, solar system installation along with using the names of companies like Amazon, Apple and others.
Once a victim calls the helpline number provided by the scammers or receives the call, the operators pose as technical support executives from multinational firms. After gaining remote access to the victims' computers, they coerced them into purchasing high-value gift vouchers as payment for the bogus technical services. Investigators also uncovered a complex financial trail allegedly used to launder the stolen money. Police have seized a significant cache of electronic evidence, including 53 desktops, four laptops, 24 mobile phones and detailed scam scripts used by the employees to manipulate victims.
Commissioner of Police (CP), Bidhannagar, Rathod Amitkumar Bharat said, "Investigations are underway to trace the mastermind. The verification for ownership of the office space is also going on."
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.