Some of the members of the racket were from Europe and North America, although the key players were operating from Delhi and Gujarat.
The police made huge seizures from the gang, including Rs 1.07 crore in cash, 98 laptops, 229 mobile phones and 19 luxury vehicles. The arrested persons are from Delhi, Gurugram, Dehradun and South India. Most of them were working as employees and getting between Rs 20,000 and Rs 50,000 salaries. They were aware of the fraudulent practices of the racket.
Ludhiana Police Commissioner Swapan Sharma claimed that this was the largest-ever syndicate ever busted in North India by the police. Acting upon credible intelligence inputs, simultaneous raids were conducted at multiple locations, including commercial premises near Sandhu Tower and Silver Oak.
While describing the modus operandi, Sharma said the suspects operated applications on electronic devices, targeting foreign nationals through sophisticated cyber fraud techniques being deployed by hackers. A fake pop-up warning, purportedly from Microsoft, regarding an impending virus attack or security threat would appear on the computer screen of the victim. The pop-up also displayed a customer care number to be contacted by the victim. Simultaneously, the victim’s computer screen would become unresponsive. When the victim contacted the displayed number, the call was redirected to the fraudsters through an Internet-based dialler application used for routing inbound calls.
Sharma further said each location consisted of approximately eight to ten teams, with each comprising around six or seven members. Every team had designated “openers” and “closers”. The “opener” would receive the incoming call and persuade the victim to download a remote access software such as Ultra
Viewer, thereby getting remote access to the victim’s computer system.
Thereafter, the victim was made to run fake or dummy scans on the system. During the process, fabricated warning pop-ups displayed issues such as compromised email accounts, hacked bank accounts, child pornography alerts and other false security threats.
The victims were then induced to open their email accounts, banking applications and other confidential information on their systems. Through screen sharing and remote access, the confidential data became accessible to the fraudsters.
Subsequently, the victims were falsely informed that his/her bank account had serious security issues and that the call would be transferred to a bank representative concerned. The call was then handled by the “closer”, who impersonated a bank official and falsely advised the victim that the money in the account was unsafe. The victim was then induced to transfer or part with money through one or more of the following methods, including cash pickup from the doorstep, gold pickup from the doorstep after purchasing gold, purchase and sharing of gift cards from Amazon or Apple and wire transfer of money into fake foreign accounts. The amount was routed to India through multiple hawala channels, cryptocurrency transactions and other illegal financial mechanisms, said the Police Commissioner.
“As per our investigation, the accused had been earning about Rs 35 crore per month. About 40 per cent of the money was being diverted to India through hawala rackets being operated by three operators from Millarganj, which was then further diverted to key players in Delhi and Gujarat,” said Sharma.
The police officer described the racket as another Jamtara-style phishing racket.
Further investigation is underway regarding digital evidence, money trail analysis, proceeds of crime, hawala transactions, cryptocurrency links, ownership and tenancy verification of premises used for operation of the call centres, and identification of other accused and facilitators connected with the racket.
The police have frozen 300 bank accounts, mostly mule, having more than Rs 16 crore. The Income Tax Department and the Enforcement Directorate have been informed by the police for further investigation into the racket.
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