Delhi Police Bust 3 Fake International Call Centres, 23 Arrested

Delhi Police has busted three alleged illegal international call centres operating from residential premises in west Delhi and arrested 23 people, including alleged owners, managers, bankers and telecallers, for targeting citizens of the US, Canada and European countries through technical-support scams, officials said on Friday.

The coordinated raids were conducted on September 17 at three locations in Meenakshi Garden, Ajay Enclave and Kirti Nagar following specific intelligence and technical inputs, police said.

"The accused allegedly posed as Apple/iOS and Microsoft technical-support or customer-care personnel and used internet-based calling applications to contact foreign nationals," Deputy Commissioner of Police (West)Hareshwar V Swami said.

Police said the premises had been converted into workstations equipped with laptops, mobile phones, routers and headphones. During the raids, two high-end cars, 27 laptops, 28 mobile phones, 11 routers, 36 headphones, 25 adapters and Rs 79,200 in cash were recovered.

The arrested persons include alleged call-centre owners or organisers Saurabh Sharma (36), Saranjeet Singh alias Jerry (31) and Taranjeet Singh alias Jazz (34), besides managers, telecallers and a person allegedly working as a "banker", police said.

According to the investigation, the accused allegedly used social-engineering techniques to target victims in the US, Canada and European countries. Fake pop-ups and messages claiming unauthorised purchases, subscription renewals or security issues were allegedly used to induce victims to contact toll-free numbers operated by the call centres.

After establishing contact, telecallers allegedly transferred the victims to persons posing as senior officials or bankers, who demanded payments ranging from USD 149 to USD 499 for purportedly resolving the issue, police said.

"The victims were allegedly induced to make payments through Apple gift cards or Zelle. The payment details were subsequently circulated among members of the network for collection and conversion of the fraudulent proceeds," the DCP said.

In a statement, police said applications including Google Voice, X-Lite, EyeBeam and MicroSIP were used for internet-based international calls, while UltraViewer was allegedly used to obtain remote access to victims' computers.

Preliminary examination of the seized digital devices revealed foreign call histories, lists of overseas telephone numbers, victim-related information, payment screenshots and conversations, police said.

The devices also contained business accounts on online messaging applications and multiple groups allegedly used for operational coordination, sharing toll-free number-related information and handling fraudulent proceeds.

The police said the network allegedly used VoIP-based calling and other technical methods to conceal the actual location and identity of the operators and bypass lawful international calling gateways.

The arrested persons include Rahul Verma (24), Raju (23), Ratan Kumar (25), Nilesh Mishra (32), Vikash Giri (35), Nitin Das alias Karan Rai alias Nathan (24), Saurab Singh alias Jason (25), Sagar Singh alias Shivi Singh alias Alex (23), A (28), Madhav Kathuria (20), Gursimran Singh (27), Harshit Handa (31), Shivam Sharma (26), Ravi Yadav (39) and Ayush Bhargav (31), among others.

Police said Manmohan alias Maddy (32) allegedly worked as a banker, while Gurvinder Singh alias Harry (34) was allegedly the main head of the operation. Sonit Kapoor alias James (31) allegedly worked as a manager.

The digital evidence is being analysed to establish the complete hierarchy of the alleged network, identify other associates and ascertain the individual roles of those arrested, police said.

Further investigation is underway.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)