126 nabbed in crackdown against illegal call centres in Noida
NOIDA: The Noida Police on Thursday arrested 126 persons from Sector 63 as part of a massive crackdown against illegal call centres operating from the National Capital Region (NCR) that target American and Canadian citizens.
Over 300 computer systems along with ₹20 lakh cash was recovered, police said.
Police said the “unnamed” call centre was operating out of a four-storey building i n E-block of Sector 63 in Noida for the past 7-8 months.
The arrested people used to make gullible US citizens transfer money from their bank accounts through gift cards and share details with them.
Later, they redeemed the amount from these cards, police said.
“We received crucial evidence suggesting that a call centre being run in Noida is involved in duping US citizens by masquerading as officials from the Unites States Social Security Administration (USSSA). We conducted a raid and arrested 126 persons for fraud and extortion under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 420 and 387 respectively. Among the arrested are the masterminds — Narendra Pahuja and Jimmy Asija, both natives of Gurugram, who are co-owners of the call centre,” said Ajay Pal Sharma, senior superintendent of police (SSP), Noida Police.
“Pretending to be USSSA officials, they sent voicemails to their victims and asked for their social security numbers. Few gullible citizens who shared their social security number fell in their trap,” Sharma said.
Then they used the social security numbers to search for their victims’ names and phone numbers on the internet.
Later, they called their victims claiming to be USSSA offi- cials and told them that their social security number had been compromised which made their bank accounts susceptible to hacking.
“These men then coerced the victims into transferring amounts ranging from $1,500 to $3,500 through gift or game cards. Then they redeemed the money from the cards,” added Sharma.
Police said that the accused had duped people of crores of rupees to date.
“The call centre was active for the past three years. For the first two years, they operated in Gurugram. They then took a few months break and started their operations in Noida. We also recovered ₹20 lakh cash from their office,” said Sharma.
Noida and Haryana Police have been conducting raids at several locations in NCR to thwart the mushrooming of illegal call centres which target US and Canadian citizens. The initiative was taken after officials of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Royal Mounted Canadian Police met the local cops and shared inputs recently.
On November 27, six teams from crime branch and two teams from city police stations had conducted coordinated raids at eight call centres in Gurugram.
The raids resulted in 15 arrests and eight FIRS being registered.
The probe was started after software giant Microsoft reported it was receiving complaints from users across the globe that they were targeted by frauds that offered people assistance in the firm’s name.
Police said that among the 126 accused, majority of the youth hailed from Delhi-ncr, Mizoram and Nagaland, and they were hired through a Delhibased recruitment agency. The call centre owners allegedly hired young men and women who had worked in a call centre before and could speak in a “heavy American accent”.
“They were being paid monthly salary between ₹15,000 to ₹20,000,” said Sharma.
Police are now trying to find out few ‘”international contacts” of the call centre owners who provided them the IP addresses of the computer systems of the US citizens. “Till now, we have come to know that they have contacts in Dubai, China and US who provided them the database of US citizens,” said Sharma.