Hyderabad: Madhapur police of Cyberabad commissionerate busted three fake call centres running under the guise of the US Customs & Border Protection Cell department and a reputed e-commerce giant and siphoned off money from the US citizens.
Using voip calls, the organisers and employees of these call centres duped US citizens. These companies registered in Gujarat, were operating in the city for close to two years. They could have duped more than 20 US citizens per day, starting from an average amount of USD 2,000, said CP Cyberabad M Stephen Raveendra. The companies are identified as ARJ Solutions, AG Solutions and Vertez solutions.
Police said the organisers procured personal and sensitive data of US citizens from callcentersindia.com and also purchased VOIP services to contact the citizens. In the first instance, the telecallers working in these companies would call the victims, posing as officials from US Customs & Border Protection Cell and inform that there is a parcel from Mexico on their name and that the parcel has drugs, for which they will be charged with drug trafficking and money laundering and that they have also found incriminating material against the victims.
Further, they also tell the victims that they can avoid serious punishment by paying some penalty and ask the victims to arrange the penalty in the form of gift coupons.
In the second instance, the suspects call the victims, informing them of a product delivery on their name. When the victim claims to have not placed any order, they ask the victim to pay charges for order cancellation and collect it in the form of gift coupons.
These gift coupons are sold at discounted rates on another website ‘Paxful’ and the same is redeemed in the form of crypto currency. The cryptocurrency is then sold on another website localbitcoin.com and converted into Indian currency. At this stage, the suspects can collect Indian currency in the form of bank transfer and even cash and it happened through hawala mode, said the CP.
Police said 115 persons including the organisers and the telecallers working in these companies were arrested. The telecallers belonging to different states were required to have a graduation as minimum qualification, but if they have good command over the language, they were hired. “ The employees are arrested, as they are aware of the fraud,” the CP added.
He also added that they had raided these offices based on tip off, but have not received any complaints from the victims.
