The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has conducted a fresh round of searches in an existing fake call centre case at four premises of persons accused of duping American citizens online.
The searches at the Delhi and National Capital Region (NCR) premises of the accused -- Harish Kumar, Amit Kumar, Rakesh Kumar Athotra, Raj Kumari, among others -- led to recovery of foreign and Indian currencies to the tune of around Rs 3 crore , 15 mobile phones and 7 laptops containing remote access applications, Textnow apps, fake international calling numbers, incriminating documents of US nationals, crypto investments, chats containing details of the fraud, and scripts for talking to US citizens, the CBI spokesperson said on Thursday.
“During the search, a fake tech support call centre was found where the accused/ other person were allegedly involved in online-cheating of US citizens impersonating as tech support executives. They were allegedly receiving leads from their sources and using these leads they would call potential targets in the US via the Textnow application and take control of their systems using remote access software like AnyDesk on the pretext of solving issues,” the CBI spokesperson revealed.
The CBI alleged that people involved in the racket would con targets to buy a gift card for installing and upgrading the security software, and take their card numbers. The gift card numbers allegedly taken from the targets were sent to an exclusive telegram group for cash redemption through the hawala channel, the CBI said about the gang’s modus operandi.
The CBI had registered a case on June 10, 2022, against four accused and unknown others on allegations that the accused conspired among themselves to fraudulently gain remote access to the digital resources of unsuspecting victims in the US and transferred digital assets such as crypto currencies from their wallets and accounts to their wallets.