Guwahati: 8 Call Centers involved in duping people busted; 191 persons and 3 masterminds in cop net

Debojoti Dey alias David, Rajan Sidana, Divyam Arora are the 3 masterminds who have been apprehended by the police

In a big breakthrough, the Assam Police has busted a gang of cyber criminals operating from the heart of Guwahati, who were involved in duping people of their hard earned money.

At least 191 fraudsters including 3 masterminds engaged in 8 such scam call centers were taken into custody by the Guwahati Police in multiple raids carried out in different parts of the city since last night.

Debojoti Dey alias David, Rajan Sidana, Divyam Arora are the 3 masterminds who have been apprehended by the police.

Guwahati Police Commissioner Diganta Barah briefing newspersons about the operations informed, “There was an information regarding functioning of some scam call centers in Guwahati. We formed multiple teams and conducted raids at multiple locations simultaneously against individual targets and some call centers where these cyber criminals were operating.

We raided 8 such places and we could detain 191 persons who were involved in cyber crimes, operating from these call centers, which were illegal. We could seize the electronic gadgets used in committing the crimes.”

The Guwahati CP spoke in details about the matter and stated, even foreign nationals were targetted by these call centers. During investigation it was found that transactions took place in the form of bitcoin wallet or in the form of sharing of gift voucher numbers.

CP Diganata Barah said, “Interestingly all these call centers they operated at night targetting mainly the foreign nationals and the monetary transactions took place in the form of bitcoin wallet or in the form of sharing of gift voucher numbers. These transactions are encashed into Indian rupees through an international hawala gang. Those people who were found to be working in such call centers, 8 such call centers were busted by the Guwahati Police last night.”

Interestingly, youths, both male and female from Assam and from other NE states, besides from other far flung states like Punjab Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Maharashtra were also found in those call centers.

“These scammers they impersonate as some kind of genuine tech supports staff, or customer service staff, they target gullible victims and they somehow in the process of conversation they instill some kind of fear in the mind of any targetted victim and extract personal informations. These, personal informations the scammers use to convert into monetary transactions,” the Guwahati Commissioner of Police disclosed.

𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗜𝗦 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗠𝗢𝗗𝗨𝗦 𝗢𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗗𝗜?
Sharing more details on this aspect, Guwahati Commissioner of Police Diganta Barah said, “The modus operandi if all the 8 call centers is that by resorting to internet search engines and using some kind of softwares they ensure that there is some kind of pop-ups in the computer screen of the gullible victims. Whever there is some kind of pop-up for eg the antivirus is not working and when that pop-up comes immediately the person who is using that PC gets worried. Than he starts looking for some toll free number or service center numbers. When they search for the service center numbers or toll free numbers, these scammers what they do is that they also give some kind of toll free number in the web so that whenever these toll free numbers are searched their numbers are also visible to those people (victims). So anyone who call those toll free numbers provided by these scammers, the call ends up at these call centers. After that they get into some kind of conversations. During the conversations, the call centre people who are trained enough, they have prepared transcripts pasted in front of them and they are capable of instilling some kind of fear in the minds of the victims resulting in the sharing of personal information (by the gullible victims to the scammers). These scammers then take advantage of the helplessness of the victim and in the process the scammers cheat him or her and extract monetary gain from the gullible person in the form of bitcoin or in the form of gift vouchers, which are again encashed in Indian Rupees.”

𝗧𝗛𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗧 𝗧𝗢 𝗡𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗔𝗟 𝗦𝗘𝗖𝗨𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗬
Regarding this, Commissioner of Police Diganta Barah mentioned, “The most worrying part is that illegal internet based telephone exchanges have been set up in such call centers from where they were making Internet base VOP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) international calls. That is a kind of concern for our national security.

All the monetary transactions take place through international and national hawala channels that is also a concern for our national security.”

However, the Assam Police believes that as the investigation progresses more such cyber criminals would be booked as per law of the land.

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