Chandigarh, Jun 2 (PTI): Haryana Police has busted a fake international call centre in Panchkula, which was engaged in defrauding US citizens by posing as employees of a leading e-commerce company.
Acting on a tip-off, a joint raid was conducted by the cyber crime police station, the state cyber team, and Haryana Police in Sector-2, Panchkula, on Monday night, leading to the arrest of 21 individuals, including four masterminds of the racket, police said.
The four key accused were produced before a local court on Tuesday, which remanded them to seven-day police custody.
Police said the investigation revealed that the accused received calls via a specific software and lured people into their trap by identifying themselves as customer service representatives of a leading e-commerce company.
After obtaining personal information from the victims, they would instruct them to download remote access applications to gain access to the victims' computer systems, and then mislead them into purchasing gift cards. Subsequently, these gift cards were redeemed through various channels to generate financial gains, police said.
According to DCP (Crime and Traffic) Amrinder Singh, police seized 19 computer systems, three laptops, 16 headsets, two point of sale machines, three walkie-talkie sets, two Wi-Fi routers, one currency counting machine, a hardware crypto wallet, Rs 11.30 lakh in cash, counterfeit foreign currency, gold jewelry, diamond studs, chains, bracelets, and other documents and electronic devices during the raid.
Preliminary investigation revealed that the illicit earnings were being channelled into various states through a 'hawala' network and cryptocurrency platforms.
The four key accused have been identified as Raja Siddiqui, Akshay alias Tikku, Navdeep Bedi alias Raj Bedi and Ankur Kapoor, hailing from Kolkata, Punjab, Delhi and Haryana, respectively.
The other arrested individuals include five women and 12 men, who were employed as computer operators. All of them have been released on bail, police said.
Acting on the leads provided by the accused, police are preparing to conduct raids in other states, and more arrests are likely in the case, the DCP said. PTI SUN ARI ARI
(This story is published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. No editing has been done in the headline or the body by ABP Live.)
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