Police busted a fake call centre in Sector 2 with the arrest of 21 persons, including four kingpins, who allegedly defrauded US citizens by posing as Amazon customer service representatives.
The operation was carried out late Monday night by teams from the cyber crime police station, state cyber crime unit and various crime investigation units following a tip-off. During the raid, police found several young men and women engaged in conversations with foreign nationals through laptops, headsets and internet-based calling software.
According to the police, the accused would contact the foreign nationals, persuade them to download remote-access applications such as AnyDesk, gain access to their computer systems, and mislead them into purchasing gift cards, which the accused would later use for financial gains.
Deputy commissioner of police (crime) Amarinder Singh said teams recovered 19 computer systems, three laptops, 16 headsets, two POS machines, three walkie-talkie sets, two Wi-Fi routers, a currency-counting machine, a hard crypto wallet, fake foreign currency, gold jewellery and ₹11.3 lakh cash.
The four main accused: Raja Siddiqui of Kolkata, Akshay alias Tikku of Delhi, Navdeep Bedi alias Raj Bedi of Batala, Punjab, and Ankur Kapoor of Panchkula, have been sent to seven days of police custody. The remaining 17 accused, including five women and 12 men employed as computer operators, were granted bail.
{{/usCountry}}The four main accused: Raja Siddiqui of Kolkata, Akshay alias Tikku of Delhi, Navdeep Bedi alias Raj Bedi of Batala, Punjab, and Ankur Kapoor of Panchkula, have been sent to seven days of police custody. The remaining 17 accused, including five women and 12 men employed as computer operators, were granted bail.
{{/usCountry}}Police said initial investigations have revealed links to hawala networks, cryptocurrency transactions and the movement of fraud proceeds across states. More arrests are likely, police said, adding that a case has been registered under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Information Technology Act and the Telecommunications Act.