Eighteen people, including two women, were arrested on Friday for allegedly duping United States nationalsby sending a bug on their laptops via email, said police, adding that investigation is going on to assess the number of people duped. The suspects were operating from a rented accommodation in Noida, Sector 65, said police officials.
Police said they received a tip-off that a call center involved in duping US citizens was operating in Noida. “Upon receiving the information, a team was formed, and eighteen people were arrested,” said central Noida deputy commissioner of police (DCP), Shakti Mohan Avasthy.
A police officer involved in the investigation said the call center had been operating in the rented accommodation for the past two months. “It was revealed that they used to change locations every two to three months to avoid arrest,” he said, adding that the employees were hired by the gang leaders through Telegram and other social media platforms for salaries ranging between ₹25,000 to ₹40,000.
Explaining their modus operandi, police said the gang leaders used to buy data of US citizens from US locals selling personal information, and employees hired by them were tasked with sending a bug via email, where they included their customer support number. After receiving the email, the target’s laptop processor would slow down. After this, the victims would call the customer support number provided by the scammers and talk to them via voice-over-internet calls.
“Posing as customer support from an MNC, they gained access to the victims’ laptop screens and threatened them that their bank credentials might leak due to bugs in their laptops,” said DCP Avasthy, adding that, under the pretext of providing help, they charged $250 to $300 from the victims.
{{/usCountry}}“Posing as customer support from an MNC, they gained access to the victims’ laptop screens and threatened them that their bank credentials might leak due to bugs in their laptops,” said DCP Avasthy, adding that, under the pretext of providing help, they charged $250 to $300 from the victims.
{{/usCountry}}Police said the suspects have been identified as Dhruv Arora, 26, who was leading the call center, a resident of South Delhi; Akash Kumar, 27; Mayvo, 26; Saurabh Chandra, 26; Mohammad Fazul, 28, all residents of Delhi; Tarun Sharma, 36; Guruvindar Singh, 32; Pratyuman Sharma, 27; Gaurav Jasrotiya, 30; Kunal Rajvanshi, 29; Divyansh Bhadala, 28; Apurv Singh, 25; Ritu Rajput, 24; Sukrati Singh, 24; Mayur Nayak, 28, all residents of Noida; and Akash Tiwari, 25; Asmit Singh, 27; Harman Preet, 29, all residents of Faridabad.
Twenty-three laptops, twenty-five headphones, and other electronic gadgets were recovered from their possession, said police adding that a case under sections of cheating (318) and cheating by personation(319) of BNS was registered at Phase 3 police station and further investigation is underway.
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