Faridabad police bust 2 illegal call centres, arrest 28 people

The suspects posed as technical support representatives for prominent firms and deceived and extorted money from foreign nationals

Faridabad police on Sunday busted two illegal call centres and arrested 28 suspects for allegedly duping people under the pretext of providing them technical support. Police recovered six mobile phones and 50 laptops from their possession, said officers.

Police conducted multiple raids at two call centres which were operating for several months, investigators said. (Representational image)

Abhimanyu Goyat, the assistant commissioner of police (Cyber), executed the raids at two separate locations, dismantling the operations of the call centres. “We received tip-offs on July 20, based on which we formed the teams and conducted raids in a fake call centre in Sector 86. The operation led to the immediate arrest of Yash Taneja, Avidip, and Chirag Arora. Further investigation unveiled the involvement of Deepika Arora, Hemant Tiwari, Lavi Guglani, Aethil Gulati, and Sahil Sodhi, who were apprehended. The mastermind behind the operation, Sameer Srivastava, who was responsible for generating the fraudulent calls, was also arrested and is currently under a five-day police remand,” he said.

Goyat said another raid was conducted in the YMCA area by a joint team from Cyber Police Ballabhgarh and Sector 7 Police Post. “This operation resulted in the arrest of 17 people, including five women, and the confiscation of 45 laptops and one mobile phone. Later, two additional suspects, Apson and call centre manager Rakesh, were arrested in Delhi, with two mobile phones recovered from them,” he said.

Modus operandi

The suspects posed as technical support representatives for prominent companies. They operated through fake toll-free numbers and deceived foreign nationals into believing they were receiving legitimate customer service. Using remote access tools for computers such as AnyDesk, TeamViewer, and UltraViewer, the fraudsters misled their victims about non-existent issues such as personal information at risk, multiple hackers connected, and financial information leaks. They then extorted money from the victims to “resolve” these fabricated problems.