Fake Call Centre Defrauding Foreigners Busted in Noida, 16 Arrested

Noida: In a major breakthrough, Noida's Cyber Crime Police has busted a fake call centre operating in Sector 16, officials said on Thursday. As many as 16 individuals were arrested from the spot and large cache of electronic equipment was seized during the operation. The call centre was involved in systematically defrauding foreign nationals through tech-support scams.

The seized items include four laptops, fifteen desktops, fifteen monitors, sixteen mobile phones, along with headsets, microphones, routers and modems.

According to the police, the accused trapped foreigners used paid advertisements on social media platforms. These ads displayed toll-free numbers, and when a foreigner called on this number, the call would be redirected to the call centre's specialised calling software.

The accused would then pose as technical support agents and alarm callers by claiming their computer or mobile device had been hacked. The fraudsters used screen-sharing tools to gain remote access to the victim's system and harvest banking credentials. To scare the victims, the accused would also deliberately turn their screen blank.

The operation was more calculated than a standard scam. The accused would first check each victim's bank balance before deciding how much to extort from them. Victims with a lower balance were extorted for amounts between $100 and $500. If the victim had more balance, more money was extorted from them.

Earlier, police busted a fake call centre in Delhi's Pitampura and arrested 19 people. The accused were duping people on the pretext of providing loans and insurance-related benefits. They would charge Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000 fromt he victims by sending QR codes to them on social media.

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