Illegal call centre in Igatpuri used sophisticated digital means to con foreigners

The CBI probe is also on the lookout for bank officials who might have helped the accused fraudsters in opening or operating mule bank accounts, the sources said

MUMBAI: A cyber-fraud network, which was busted in August by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for allegedly defrauding unsuspecting citizens of the United States of America and Canada through an Igatpuri-based illegal call centre, was using sophisticated digital means, including cloud servers, to approach victims, the agency has learnt.

Illegal call centre in Igatpuri used sophisticated digital means to con foreigners

The fraudsters allegedly employed a simple yet clever ruse by posing as customer support staff of an e-commerce site to contact their potential victims. The accused would inform them that there were pending orders in their account that required a payment to cancel them. The victims were then allegedly persuaded into transferring a cancellation charge via cryptocurrency (a type of virtual currency that is not a legal tender in India) or gift vouchers in wallets controlled by the scammers, the officials said.

According to the racket’s modus operandi, they made the initial contact with the victims purportedly through “cloud servers” at the behest of the service-support centre, the officials said. A cloud server refers to a virtual server hosted remotely on a cloud provider’s infrastructure and accessed online.

The accused persons had recruited more than 60 operators for the call centre. “During the searches, 62 employees working in the call centre were found operating live and in the process of cheating foreign nationals,” an official said.

The agency is trying to trace the proceeds of the crime, which are suspected to have been parked at mule bank accounts and concealed in the form of cash and cryptocurrency, the sources said.

The CBI probe is also on the lookout for bank officials who might have helped the accused fraudsters in opening or operating mule bank accounts, the sources said.

On August 8 and 9, the CBI carried out raids at a rented resort and busted the illegal call centre. Six individuals, and a few others who are unidentified, including bank officials, were booked and arrested. The accused allegedly entered into a criminal conspiracy to commit financial fraud by impersonation. During the operation, the CBI also seized unaccounted cash worth ₹1.2 crore, 500 grams of gold, seven high-end cars with a total value of ₹1 crore, apart from cyber evidence and incriminating material.