Illegal call centre busted in Gurugram, 12 arrested

According to police, they received a tip-off and were told that an illegal call centre was operating from the basement of a house in Sushant Lok-1. The suspects were calling potential customers abroad and offering them technical support services, police said, adding that six of them were women

Police on Thursday busted an illegal call centre in Sushant Lok-1 and arrested 12 suspects for allegedly duping people under the garb of providing them technical support. Police recovered ₹92,700 cash, four mobile phones and six laptops from their possession, Gurugram police said.

Illegal call centre busted in Gurugram, 12 arrested

Police conducted a raid at the call centre that lasted for several hours and arrested the suspects. The call centre was operating for the last eight months, police added.

According to investigators, they received a tip-off and were told that an illegal call centre was operating from the basement of a house in Sushant Lok-1. The suspects were calling potential customers abroad and offering them technical support services, police said, adding that six of them were women.

Priyanshu Diwan, assistant commissioner of police (cyber), said during interrogation, the call centre employees said they were working on the direction of two individuals who were not present at the call centre. “The employees were paid ₹30,000 a month along with some incentives,” he said.

ACP Diwan said the suspects targeted people mainly in the United States. “They made voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) calls and duped people into paying for technical support services. We seized four computers and have initiated a probe,” he said.

Preet Pal Sangwan, assistant commissioner of police (crime), said their modus operandi was to send an email to potential victims with fake pop-up error messages, stating that a malware had infected their computer systems and if not rectified immediately, their personal and financial data would be compromised.

Police said the suspects were unable to furnish documents required for running a call centre, such as a licence from the department of telecommunications, company registration, source of customers and mode of payment.

“The pop-up messages would lock the user’s browser and warnings such as ‘malicious malware detected’ and ‘personal information is not safe’ would repeatedly flash on the screen. In a panic, the victims would contact the helpline number mentioned on the screen. The calls would be answered by call centre agents, who would use aliases, and claimed to be technical experts from prominent companies”, ACP Sangwan said.

“The user would be asked to install a bogus paid application for a fee ranging between $500-$2,000. The fee was taken in the form of gift cards from iTunes or Amazon,” ACP Sangwan added.

A case was registered against the suspects under Section 420 (cheating) and120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) along with sections of the Information Technology (IT) Act at the Cyber Crime police station, police added.