Cyberabad police arrested 115 people in connection with the fraud and claimed they conned over 20 US citizens on average everyday.
Published Aug 13, 2023 | 12:00 PM ⚊ Updated Aug 13, 2023 | 1:57 PM
The seized items. (Supplied)
The Cyberabad police busted an international fake call-centre racket operating from Vittal Rao Nagar in Madhapur on Friday, 11 August, and arrested 115 people for allegedly cheating US citizens by posing as executives of a major American e-commerce company.
The police said the racket that operated three fake call centres had cheated more than 15,000 US citizens over the past two and more years. On average, they conned more than 20 people daily.
The arrested people were later served notice and released.
The accused collected the contact information and personal details of possible victims from a lead generation portal, the police said.
The call centre’s staff allegedly made random VoIP calls to foreign nationals, including US residents. Once they picked up the call, the tele-callers lied to them that the shipment containing dubious items addressed to them have been received and asked for the order ID.
Police officials with the seized items. (Supplied)
When the receiver failed to provide the order ID, the accused issued threats, saying that a particular amount would be deducted from their account and that it would affect their credit card score.
“They posed either as officials of the US Customs and Border Protection agency or e-commerce executives,” Madhapur Circle Inspector N Tirupathi, who led the team that busted the racket, told South First.
The accused would then collect the personal data and would force the receiver to buy gift vouchers from e-commerce giants, by threatening that that US authorities would initiate legal action against them.
Once the US citizens procured the gift vouchers and shared the redemption codes with the call centre employees, they used the codes to sell the acquired gift cards on an alternate website, mostly at discounted rates.
The Madhapur Police conducted a raid on a Fake International VOIP Call Center, apprehending a large interstate cyber fraud gang comprising 115 members. These criminals were involved in a sophisticated cyber fraud operation targeting foreign customers by impersonating Amazon pic.twitter.com/meYujMb1eW
— Cyberabad Police (@cyberabadpolice) August 11, 2023
After the code was redeemed, the purchasers from other websites would send money to the fraudsters in the form of cryptocurrency.
“The accused then converted that cryptocurrency into asset-backed cryptocurrency stable coin, USDT (United States Department of Treasury), by using wallets on a cryptocurrency exchange platform,” the police said.
The accused would then search for the buyer of that cryptocurrency on local Bitcoin vendor’s websites.
“They would then find those willing to purchase cryptocurrency. Once identified, they would transfer the USDT to those people’s wallets that need not be registered on the cryptocurrency exchange platform,” Tirpathi explained.
“The victims would then make payments through unidentified people at different locations and the accused would eventually convert the cryptocurrency into Indian rupees,” the officer said.
He added that the police had been monitoring the racket for the past two to three months.
The six individuals responsible for setting up the three fake call centres were identified as Ansari Mohirfan of ARJ Solutions, Ganchi Akib of AG Solutions, Pradeep Vinod Rathod, Osman Ghani Khan, Shivam Pradhan, and Deepu Thapar, who operated Vertez Solutions.
The police seized seven laptops, 115 CPUs, 94 monitors and 120 mobiles from the accused.
