In a major operation, the Gurugram Police in Haryana dismantled a fake call centre on Saturday, arresting a 13-member gang involved in defrauding Canadian citizens by impersonating Microsoft Customer Support representatives.
The arrested gang members were identified as Vishal Dubey, Shubham Dubey, Harshit Mishra, Akshat Kundu, Devansh, Nishi Shukla, Diti Shukla (all from Uttar Pradesh), Ankit Chauhan, Ravi Kaushik, Saurabh Tanwar, Akshay, Prince (all from Haryana), and Sooraj from Delhi, the alleged gang leader.
The gang had been operating for over a month, sending fake pop-up viruses to Canadian citizens, which included toll-free numbers leading victims to call their fake Microsoft support team. Upon receiving the calls, the gang members would convince the foreign nationals that their computer data, including banking and personal information, was compromised. They would then gain remote access to the victims’ computers under the pretext of resolving the issue.
After manipulating the victims, the gang members falsely claimed that their banking information had been exposed and transferred the calls to another member pretending to be from the bank’s headquarters. This so-called ‘bank representative’ would demand a service charge between 300 to 500 dollars, offering a waiver if the payment was made via gift cards. The victims sent the gift cards, which the gang then redeemed.
The call centre employees were paid a salary of Rs30,000 per month for their involvement. Acting on a tip-off, police raided the call centre, recovering 12 laptops and 3 mobile phones from the accused. A case has been registered under Section 318(4), 319 of the BNS and IT Act at the Cyber Crime South Police Station, Gurugram. The accused are set to be presented in court and face jail time.
