Northeast

13 from Manipur among 65 arrested for running fraud call centre in Delhi

The Cyber Cell West District of the Delhi Police arrested the 65 people for allegedly running a fraud racket at Fateh Nagar, Hari Nagar, Delhi.

ByIFP Bureau

Updated 31 Jul 2021, 4:01 pm

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Sixty-five persons, including 13 telecallers from Manipur, were arrested in New Delhi on Wednesday for allegedly running a fake international call centre at Fateh Nagar, Hari Nagar, Delhi by the Cyber Cell West District of the Delhi Police.

According to a release by the Cyber Cell West District, the raid was conducted at the fraud call centre following an information received regarding some persons running international online fraud racket at Fateh Nagar.

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It also came to the notice of the cyber cell that some fraudsters were engaged in using illegal techniques, VOIP calling, bypassing the legal International Long Distance (ILD) gateways and thus causing wrongful loss to government exchequer and wrongful gain to themselves, the release stated. 

It was learnt that they were cheating US citizens by impersonating as government officials of US Customs and Border Protection Department, Drug Enforcement Agency, Sheriff, FBI, Treasury office USA and extort money from overseas victims in the name of saving them from legal action and arrest, it added. 

The alleged fraudsters present during the raid were asked about the activity going on there but they could not give any satisfactory answer and tried to mislead the raiding team by pretending as genuine medical services supplier of USA, it further stated. 

"In this process they were bypassing the legal gateways and were causing wrongful loss to the government exchequer and were cheating innocent persons abroad. They were using their own technology to evade detection," it mentioned.

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According to the police, the modus operandi of the scam typically begins with a pre recorded threatening robocall claiming to be from legal department and telling the victim that your SSN will be suspended soon and to save themselves from legal action, victim is persuaded to connect via pressing 'one' on IVR. 

The release further stated that when the threatened victim presses 'one' on IVR, the call gets connected to one of the telecallers sitting in this present scam call center and the tele callers impersonate themselves as officials of US Customs and Border Protection Department, saying that a parcel containing drugs addressed in the name of victim have been seized by US Customs and Border Protection Department and legal action of arrest, forfeiture of bank accounts or property, suspension of social security number and execution of warrant has been initiated against them. To save themselves from said fictitious legal action and safeguard their bank funds, victims were deceitfully told to immediately move their entire bank balance amount into e-gift cards. They were told that the amount spent on buying the said e-gift cards (Target, Nike, Walmart, Gpay, Macy's, Best Buy and others) was refundable by Social Security Administration department, it stated. 

"As the numbers used by alleged are spoofed VOIP numbers, the complainant can neither call back nor those numbers can be traced. The alleged persons procure the details of US resident victims using illegal techniques, VOIP calling, caller ID spoofing. The magnitude of total cheated amount is estimated to be in crores," the release added.

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cyber crimedelhifake call centrefraud racket

IFP Bureau

IFP Bureau

IMPHAL, Manipur

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