Illegal call centre busted in Gurugram, four held

Vipin Ahalawat, assistant commissioner of police (cyber), said the suspects impersonated employees of reputed firms such as Apple, Amazon, eBay and called their victims and took remote access of their computers to dupe them

Four suspects were arrested on Wednesday for allegedly running an illegal call centre under the garb of providing technical support to foreign nationals from a rented accommodation in Sector 47, Gurugram police said on Thursday.

The suspects in police custody. (HT Photo)

Police said the owner of the illegal call centre was also among the arrested suspects.

Vipin Ahalawat, assistant commissioner of police (cyber), said the suspects impersonated employees of reputed firms such as Apple, Amazon, eBay and called their victims and took remote access of their computers to dupe them.

ACP Ahalawat said they received a tip-off after which a team was formed to raid the call centre on Wednesday night. Four laptops, four mobile phones, a modem and other equipment were recovered from the suspects.

The ACP said that he along with Jasvir Singh, station house officer (SHO) of Cyber Crime police station (east), raided the house and found the suspects making international calls.

The suspects were identified as Nipun alias Nishu — the owner of the call centre, Ashish Nanda alias Aashi, Mohammad Rashid and Abhishek Kashyap. A case under relevant sections was registered against them at Cyber Crime police station (east), said police.

ACP Ahalawat said during interrogation, Nipun revealed that he along with his three employees had set up the call centre to dupe foreign residents. “The employees were paid salaries and incentives every month and all of them had prior experience of working in call centres.

Police said the suspects revealed they had taken up the apartment on rent for the last one month and used to send toll-free numbers to their victims through e-mails. They said they have contacted nearly 5,000 foreigners, mostly people from the United States, for technical assistance.

“When the victims called the toll-free number, the suspects used to take access of their computers through the AnyDesk app and later cheated them,” said SHO Singh.

The call centre employees also used to send pop-ups and messages containing viruses to the computer systems of their victims, which locked their screens/browsers.

“The suspects also threatened their victims by saying they will be booked for child pornography and that their bank details have been leaked. They convinced them that their bank balance was no longer secure and took remote access of their computers. They charged the victims between $200 and $5,000 to fix their systems. The transactions were made through gift cards and Google pay, among other payment methods,” said ACP Ahalawat.