26 held in fake call centre bust in Delhi

The Delhi Police has busted a fake call center and arrested 26 employees, including five women, for allegedly duping people based in the US by impersonating Amazon customer service providers, officials said on Tuesday.

Based on a tip-off, a police team late Monday night raided the illegal call center which was being operated from south Delhi's Sultanpur area, they said.

Police said the accused were extorting money from customers based in the US by claiming that their Amazon ID had been hacked.

Preliminary investigation has revealed that the illegal call center has been running for the last seven months and on average at least six US citizens were created daily. Over 1,250 such citizens are cheated so far, according to police.

The accused have duped US-based customers of over Rs 4 crore so far, they said.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Atul Kumar Thakur said, ''When our team reached the spot, they found an office set-up in place from where the employees of the call center were caught red-handed while they were trying to dupe US-based citizens on call by posing as officials from Amazon Inc.'' The accused used illegal techniques of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to approach their targets, he said.

When inquired, it came to notice that the call center was being run without any license and they could not produce any documents to prove its legal functioning, he added.

During interrogation, the accused disclosed that they would send fake messages to phone numbers of Amazon customers, telling them that their Amazon ID has been hacked and charges have been imposed on them.

When the customer would call back to know more about it, they would show them fake repair of their Amazon ID through AnyDesk, a remote desktop application.

The target would be made to pay up in form of target gift cards, which the accused would redeem, the DCP said.

The mobile phones, containing various US-based contact numbers in a WhatsApp group, have been recovered from the possession of the accused, he said.

The police have recovered 29 computer systems, three servers, two internet switches, two modems with other accessories being used by the accused, and mobile phones containing details of duped transactions.