The Central Bureau of Investigation has searched 76 locations across 11 States as part of the “Chakra-II” operation launched against the organised cyber-enabled financial crimes.
The action has been taken in collaboration with national and international agencies, apart from private sector giants. The searches in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Haryana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Bihar, Delhi, West Bengal, and Himachal Pradesh, pertained to five cases.
While two cases were registered on complaints from Microsoft and Amazon, the Financial Intelligence Unit-India also provided key information to the agency. During the operation, it has seized 32 mobile phones, 48 laptops/hard disks, images of two servers, 33 SIM cards, and pen drives. A large number of bank accounts have been frozen.
The CBI has also seized a dump of 15 email accounts, which contain exhaustive details of the “intricate web of deceit” spun by the accused persons.
“...two instances of International Tech Support Fraud scam came to light. In these cases, the accused impersonated a global IT major and a multinational corporation with an online technology-driven trading platform. The accused, operating nine call centres across five States/union territory, systematically preyed on foreign nationals, masquerading as technical support representatives,” said the agency.
Several groups were running these call centres in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi. Their victims were mainly from the United States, United Kingdom and Germany. The accused, who had been active over the past five years, used international payment gateways and channels to route the illegally acquired funds.
Explaining the modus operandi, the CBI said the accused would send to their targets Internet pop-up messages masked as security alerts, claiming that the recipients’ computers had various technical glitches. The messages carried “toll-free” numbers purportedly for troubleshooting services. Those numbers were being operated from the call centres.
Once contacted, the accused would gain remote access of the victim’s computer and make the person pay up huge amounts on the pretext of fixing the problem.
Crypto-currency fraud
The agency said Operation Chakra-II also led to the identification of a sophisticated crypto-currency fraud. “This audacious scheme, under the guise of a fake crypto mining operation, targeted unsuspecting Indian citizens, resulting in a staggering loss of over ₹100 crore to Indian victims,” said the agency.
As it turned out, some of the accused had developed a fictitious cryptocurrency token and enticed people to invest on the mining of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for phenomenal returns. They had also created a website using the image of a renowned Indian-American crypto technologist to mislead the investors into believing that their funds would be used to buy mining machines and the profits generated from the minted cryptocurrencies would be distributed among them.
The app operated till August 2021. Initially, the investors were allegedly given returns to gain their trust, but the payments ceased after August 2021. The masterminds had allegedly amassed about ₹168.75 crore.
During the probe, the CBI has identified 150 accounts — including those of 46 shell companies, 42 proprietorship firms and 50 individuals — which were used for collecting, diverting, layering or laundering of the funds. Two private companies and their directors have been booked in this regard.
“The CBI is working closely in the spirit of international police cooperation with its international counterparts, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation of U.S.A., Cybercrime Directorate and IFCACC of Interpol, the National Crime Agency in the United Kingdom, the Singapore Police Force and the BKA (Bundeskriminalamt) of Germany to notify further leads,” it said.
In October 2022, the agency had unearthed two such call centres operating in Pune and Ahmedabad since 2014-15. Over 110 premises of suspects were searched in Delhi, Punjab, Rajasthan, Assam, Karnataka, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh and Haryana. Initially, 16 accused had been arrested during that operation code-named “Chakra”.
