The “Millennium City” continues to struggle with its reputation as a hub for cyber-enabled fraud as police dismantled yet another elaborate international scam operation operating in the heart of its industrial estate.
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The Modus Operandi: The call center specialized in “Tech Support Scams.” Victims in the United States would receive fraudulent “security warning” pop-ups on their browsers. These messages provided a toll-free number that connected them directly to the Udyog Vihar office. There, callers used American aliases and polished accents to convince victims to pay for “remote repair services” via gift cards or wire transfers.
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The Raid: Acting on a specific tip-off and intelligence shared by international agencies, a team led by the ACP (Cyber Crime) stormed the fourth-floor office at approximately 12:30 AM. Many employees were caught mid-call with unsuspecting American victims.
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Detentions and Seizures: Out of the 20 people detained, the majority are young graduates recruited from neighboring states and trained in “accent neutralization.” Police recovered a “cheat sheet” of scripts tailored to overcome various objections from skeptical victims.
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Financial Trail: Investigators found that the proceeds of the crime were being routed through multiple shell accounts and converted into cryptocurrency to evade detection. The police are currently working with bank officials to freeze the identified accounts.
Community Sentiment
“These centers hire young kids who think they are getting a ‘glamorous’ international call center job, only to realize they are part of a criminal enterprise. It’s high time the building owners in Udyog Vihar are also held accountable for who they lease their spaces to,” said a local IT consultant based in the same sector.
