Police in Assam have unearthed a multi-crore scam and busted eight illegal call centres, which used to scam Indians and people from other countries in the guise of offering technical support. Three people, who are suspected to be the masterminds of the scam, have been arrested and 191 have been detained.
Acting on intelligence inputs, the Assam Police Crime Branch and the Guwahati Police carried out raids in various places in Guwahati and discovered eight illegal call centres being run by scamsters. A police official said the fraud was being carried out for the past two years and Bitcoin and hawala channels were used to move the money that was being earned.
The call centres had employees from across the country.
Guwahati Police Commissioner Diganta Borah said, “A reliable intelligence input was received that some scammer gangs are operational in Guwahati who are involved in operating call centres and cheating Indians and foreign nationals by impersonating technical support staff. They would also pose as customer support representatives.”
Mr Borah said the scammers would use pop-ups on computers or contact their targets over the phone by claiming to be from a well-known company or organisation, such as a bank, technical support company, government agency or even a popular online service provider.
They would then create a false sense of urgency by claiming that their victims’ bank account has been compromised, their computer has a virus, their social media account has been hacked or their personal information is at risk.
The scammers would then ask the victims to install remote desktop software on their phones or computers to remedy the situation, and then access their bank accounts and steal their information by planting malware on the devices, the commissioner added.
A police official said the scammers’ modus operandi included the use of fake toll-free numbers and Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls, which are calls made over the internet.
“Some of the call centres also took lease line connections with fake documents from different internet service providers to create something resembling a fake internet-based telephone exchange, which could be a cause of concern for national security,” he added.
