Delhi Police Cyber cell arrests 34 for duping US, UK nationals

The Cyber Cell of the Delhi Police has arrested 34 persons for allegedly duping US, UK nationals by impersonating as US Drug Enforcement Agency officials. 

Anyesh Roy, the DCP of the Cyber Cell said that they got a tip-off that the accused were running two illegal call centres from the third and fourth floor of a building in the Uttam Nagar area. Subsequently, a team was constituted to conduct a raid. 

"We reached the said address and arrested 34 persons. The owners of both centres have been arrested from the spot. The 3rd Floor centre was being run by one Kshitiz Bali while the other one was being run by Dhananjay Negi," said Mr. Roy. 

The official said that at the time of the raid, one of the accused was calling a foreign national impersonating as US Enforcement Agency official and was trying to extort 200 US dollar from her. The team managed to take over the call at the right time before the offence could be completed and made the victim, an elderly female, aware of the scam and further cautioned her not to fall prey to such tricks in the future.

The accused used to contact foreign nationals by impersonating various law enforcement agencies and other government agencies such as the Social Security Administration, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the US Marshals Service, etc. and tell them that their bank accounts and other assets are being frozen as their details have been found at a crime scene and there are bank accounts running in their names using which illegal transactions have been made to drug cartels in Mexico and Colombia. They also threatened the victims with immediate arrest. 

They used to give two options to the victim one was to go for legal action, facing arrest, and getting their assets seized. The second option was to go for an Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR). 

When the victim would choose to go for ADR, they would ask them to share all the details of their assets, bank accounts. The accused then used to force the victim to buy Bitcoins or Google Gift Cards worth all the money in their accounts. Later they would take details of their account and would siphon off all the money. 

Cyber cell was receiving complaints in this respect and they developed the information to arrest the accused. The police said that further probe in the matter is on.