15 arrested for duping people on the pretext of offering tech support

KOLKATA: Fifteen people were arrested late on Tuesday night from New Town for duping several Indian citizens along with residents of Australia, USA and UK by promising to provide technical support for their computers and laptops through an illegal call centre.

The accused persons also used to sell website domains through advertisements on the internet and also had a smartphone application to provide loans.

According to sources, recently cops of Bidhannagar Cyber crime police station were tipped off about

a call centre that is running without any registration of the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) on the fifth floor of the 3A block in the Eco Space.

On Tuesday night when cops conducted a raid, they found that not only the call centre was running without a valid registratio, but also several Indian, Australian, USA and UK citizens were being duped by the employees of the said call centre on the pretext of providing technical support for their computers and laptops.

Sources informed that they used to make anonymous calls using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and offer technical support.

The accused persons used to claim themselves as employees of a software company.

After the target was convinced, the accused persons used to connect to the computer or laptop through remote access software and put malware so that it seems that the system has problems.

Later they used to demand money in the form of gift cards and other means.

After getting the money the accused persons used to remove the malware to bring back the computer to its normal functioning mode.

Though police have managed to arrest the managers and other employees, cops are searching for the mastermind of the call centre.