CBI busts fake call centre in Delhi which duped US citizens. Recovers gadgets, foreign currencies

CBI busts a fake Tech-support Call Centre operating out of Delhi and NCR

February 16, 2023

Fake Tech-support Call Centre busted

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted searches in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) and busted a fake tech-support call centre that allegedly defrauded US citizens online. The CBI recovered gadgets, foreign currencies, and more than Rs.3 crore during the searches at four locations in Delhi-NCR, officials said on Thursday.

CBI officials said the case is related to a CBI FIR registered on June 10 last year against Harish Kumar, Amit Kumar, Rakesh Kumar Athotra, and Raj Kumari for allegedly cheating US citizens by taking control of their computers in the garb of tech support. “They were allegedly receiving leads from their source and on these leads, they would call potential targets in the USA via Textnow application and take control of their systems using remote access software like Any Desk on the pretext of solving issues,” CBI spokesperson said.

Helped by US probe agencies

The CBI was helped by US probe agencies and they found that the four were running a mobile call centre that they used to move from one place to another. The accused would take laptops on rent and delete everything from the hard disk before returning it to the company. The agency carried out the searches at the premises of the accused and recovered foreign currencies and around Rs.3,09,64,100, they said.

Gadgets, phones, and laptops recovered

Besides the cash, the CBI recovered gadgets including 15 mobile phones and seven laptops containing remote access applications, Textnow apps, fake international calling numbers, incriminating documents pertaining to US nationals, crypto investments, chats containing details of the alleged fraud, and scripts for talking to US citizens, an official statement issued said.

During the searches, a fake tech support call centre was found where the accused/ other persons were allegedly involved in online cheating of US citizens impersonating the tech support executives, said CBI. The probe agency further charged that they would then guide the targets to buy a gift card for installing/ upgrading the security software (which was never actually done) and take the card number from them.

The CBI said the gift card numbers taken from the targets were sent to an exclusive telegram group for cash redemption.

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