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DELHI POLICE NABS 37 FOR DUPING FOREIGN NATIONALS IN NAME OF SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER, THREE ILLEGAL CALL CENTRES BUSTED;

March 23, 2021 07:50 PM

ONE IN BINDAPUR AND TWO IN JANAKPURI, ACCUSED WERE RUNNING MULTIPLE FAKE PROCESSES INCLUDING SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER SCAM, APPLE TECH SUPPORT SCAM AND AMAZON TECH SUPPORT SCAM, ACCUSED USED TO SEND VOICE RECORDINGS TO FOREIGN NATIONALS PRETENDING TO BE US DRUG ENFORCEMENT AND THEN EXTORT MONEY FROM THEM, THEY ALSO USED TO SEND RECORDED MESSAGES PRETENDING TO BE FROM APPLE TECHNICAL SUPPORT AND AMAZON TECHNICAL SUPPORT AND THEN CHEAT UNSUSPECTING CALLERS
CASE HISTORY AND INVESTIGATION

 
New Delhi (Face2News)

On the basis of secret information that large scale cybercrime was being committed from Bindapur and Janakpuri, a dedicated team comprising of Insp Sajjan Singh, Insp Parveen, SI Avdesh, SI Pawan, SI Sunil, SI Ajit, and others was formed. A raid was conducted at the said premises and it was found that different accused persons were running illegal call centres in Bindapur (one centre) and Janakpuri (two centres by the same accused) .

Anyesh Roy, Deputy Commissioner Of Police, Cyber Crime Unit (Cypad), Delhi, said, two separate cases were registered against thescam centres and a total of 37 persons, including managers, supervisors and operators, were arrested, out of which 9 were working at the Bindapur centre and 28 at the Janakpuri centres. A total of 56 desktops and 41 phones have been seized from the three locations.

The accused 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. and tell 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 threaten the victims with immediate arrest.

The accused persons, at all locations, especially the Janakpuri centres, had taken extreme precaution so as to avoid getting caught. They were running their scam from a residential area in Asalatpur Village where the buildings had state of the art security systems and all accused were given strict instructions to not park their vehicles near the two neighboring buildings from which the scam was being run, so as to avoid being noticed.

PROFILE, INTERROGATION AND MODUS OPERANDI : The victims of the scam operating from the Binda pur Call Centre are people residing in foreign countries. As disclosed by the accused, they have conned thousands of people of over Rs.10 Crore. They were duping and extorting people based in foreign countries in the name of their Social Security Number, as explained below:

Social Security Number Scam : The accused 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. and tell 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 threaten the victims with immediate arrest.

Once the victim becomes apprehensive, they give them two options. One is 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 chooses to go for ADR, they ask 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 is 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 accused persons, saying that it is a safe government wallet. If the victim agrees to buy Gift Cards, they induce them to share the number of the cards stating that it will be linked to their new bank accounts and thus, be safe.

The victims of the scam operating from Janakpuri centresare also people residing in foreign countries. As disclosed by the accused, they have conned thousands of people of more than Rs.5 Crore. They were duping and extorting people by impersonating Amazon Technical Support team and Apple Technical Support team, as explained below.

Apple Technical Support Scam: The accused send recorded messages to people in US and Canada impersonating Apple Technical Support team and inducing them to call on the mentioned number for any kind of technical support related to Apple products. When an unsuspecting customer calls on the number, they pretend to be from Apple Technical Support team and take remote access of the devices of the callers. Subsequently, they start scaring them by telling them that their devices have been infected by viruses and compromised. Finally, in the name of cleaning up the devices of the callers, they induce them to make payments of up to thousands of US Dollars through Google Gift Cards or iTunes cards.

Amazon Technical Support Scam: The accused send pre-recorded messages to people based abroad, impersonating the technical support team of Amazon, “informing” them that there has been an unauthorized purchase from their account and that they need to call at the given Toll Free Number or Press 1 to resolve it. Once the unsuspecting customer calls, they cheat and extort them, using the Modus Operandi similar to Apple Technical Support scam, of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of USD. The payment is received in Bitcoins or Gift Cards, so as to remain untraceable.

The accused persons were recruited on the basis of their ability to converse fluently in English and preferably with foreign accent. Most of them are either school dropouts or simple graduates. The pay structure for both the centres was almost identical, also known as the “industry standard”. On an average, each caller (first level of the scam) was paid Rs. 25-30 thousand per month as salary while the Team Leaders and closers ( second level) were paid Rs. 60-75 thousand per month. The salary of the manager was Rs. 1 lac per month.

In addition to this, all employees were paid incentives. For every USD that they managed to scam, the caller got Rs.2 and the Team Leader/closer got Rs.4 as incentive. Investigation of the case is under progress. All relevant devices have been seized. Efforts are being made to identify the involvement of others.

 
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