Police cyber cell busts 10 fake call centres, 24 held

Complaint filed by Microsoft

The cyber cell of the Delhi police has busted 10 fake call centres with the arrest of 24 accused following multiple raids across the city on a complaint by Microsoft.

The tech giant alleged that some unidentified persons are duping their customers in India and abroad by posing as members of the company’s technical support team.

The police produced the arrested accused before a duty magistrate on Thursday evening and remanded them to police custody. On Wednesday, an FIR was registered after a complaint was made by Nripendra Kashyap of Microsoft Corporation in India.

DCP ( Cyber cell, Spl cell) Anyesh Roy said 10 teams comprising of over 100 personnel of Cyber Crime Cell and Special Cell along with technical experts raided the identified premises at 10 locations across Delhi on the intervening night of Oct 3 and 4.

“Police have arrested 24 persons and also issued notices to several persons, asking them to join the probe. Officials from Microsoft were also present with policemen during the raids, and police have recovered computers and other devices,” an official said.

The accused gain access to the victims’ computer and load malware or viruses into them. “They also steal personal information and files, which they can further use to harm victims. They are not only causing severe losses to the company, but are also tarnishing its reputation,” he claimed.

The police said Kashyap, with the help of their technical surveillance, has identified certain companies and also provided contact details to the investigators.

“The extent of such surreptitious operations of the unknown accused came to light when Kashyap started receiving thousands of complaints and on an average, he received 12,000 to 14,000 reports pertaining to such illegal activities,” a senior police officer said, adding that the complainant informed that many of the victims are senior citizens.