Guwahati: The crime branch of Assam police on Friday (September 15) busted an international cyber fraud racket in Guwahati and arrested three persons, police said.
Police also sealed several call centres and fake customer service centres at multiple locations in Guwahati.
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Three persons- Debajyoti Dey alias David (31), Rajan Sidana (39), and Divyam Arora (31) – have been arrested. Two other masterminds who managed to escape from Guwahati were apprehended late at night near Bhabanipur in Barpeta district with the help of Bajali Police.
A total of 191 employees, including 144 males and 47 females, were detained from the call centres during the raids. They are from Punjab, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, and Tripura.
164 desktops, 90 laptops, 26 mobile phones, and other electronic gadgets were also recovered during the raid.
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A case has been registered at Cyber Police Station in Guwahati under sections 120(B)/419/420/385/467/468/471/507 of IPC read with sections 65/66/66(B)/66(C)/66(D) of Information Technology Act, 2000.
Based on intelligence input that some scammer gangs are operational in Guwahati who is involved in operating call centres across India and are scamming and cheating gullible Indians and foreign nationals by impersonating tech support staff by originating “Tech Support” Pop-Ups in personal computers and by impersonating as legitimate Customer Service Representatives to deceive individuals and cheat them of their money or personal information making various false claims to create a sense of urgency or fear that the bank account has been compromised, computer has a virus, personal identifiable information are at risk, computer or social media account has been hacked,” Guwahati Police Commissioner Diganta Barah said.
Barah said that the gang is believed to have defrauded millions of rupees from gullible victims. They would initiate contact through unsolicited phone calls, claiming to be from a well-known company or organization, and then trick the victims into installing remote desktop software or giving away their personal information, he said.
The scammers would then use this information to steal money from the victims’ bank accounts or sell their personal information on the dark web, Barah added.
The police are investigating the matter further and are trying to track down the masterminds who escaped. They are also urging people to be vigilant against such scams and not to give out any personal information over the phone.