Cyber Crime Police, Cyberabad raided Fake International VOIP Call Center and Arrested Interstate Cyber Fraudster Gang of 17 members

Cyber Crime police nabbed gang of cyber fraudsters targeting foreign nationals through VOIP calls by impersonating as executives of reputed Antivirus companies and cheating them.

On reliable information, K.Srinivas, Inspector of Police, Cyber Crimes and his team conducted raid following due procedure on an illegal call center and apprehended 1) Mohammad Rafi Kavungal, S/o Mohammad K, 2) Gandham Veera Ram Naresh, S/o Venkateswarulu, and 3) Kanithi Kalyan Chakravarthy, S/o Kanithi Mukkayya, for their illegal activities. They were registered with a reputed e-commerce company as seller to project as their legal business. Simultaneously they were doing illegal activity of sending bulk emails from fake email ids to foreign nationals for generating leads (in-bound calls) from those foreign nationals to the illegal call centers located in Kolkata (operated by Ryan alias Manish Gupta). They were charging Rs.250 per each call received at these illegal call centers and 25% commission on the transaction amount collected by the call centers by cheating foreign nationals.

There are various call centers run by Ryan alias Manish Gupta and for generating inbound calls to his call centers, the suppliers send bulk emails, bulk SMSs and run google Ad words. The recipients of such emails/SMSs especially foreign nationals call on the phone number mentioned in such email and SMS. Ryan alias Manish Gupta and his team receive such calls and convince them to purchase or renew license for anti-virus software and make them pay for such service. After making the payments, they will not offer any service and cheat the innocent callers.

The accused were brought to PS and a Suo-moto case was registered in Cr.No.442/2022 u/s 419, 420, 468 r/w 34 IPC, 66 C & D IT Act, 2008 at Cyber Crime P.S., Cyberabad. Case was registered on reliable information and panchnama of raids and not based on complaint as most of the victims were foreign nationals.

Details of the accused:            

Modus Operandi:

Accused persons A1, A2 and A3, residents of Hyderabad were previously doing crypto trading and, in this process, they met A8, who introduced them to A4, A5 & A6, all residents of Kolkata, West Bengal. A4, A5 & A8 asked A1, A2 & A3 to generate leads by pushing mails to US nationals. A1, A2 & A3 purchased fake email accounts and US citizens’ email database from websites on darknet and sent bulk emails to U.S citizens mentioning a toll-free number provided by A4, A5, A6 which is a VOIP number and service purchased from darknet. A1, A2 & A3 create mail templates as per the requirement of A4, A5, A6 and send the mails.

Mostly, the phishing mails were forwarded in the name of reputed Anti-Virus company asking them to renew services. On receiving the mails U.S nationals respond to the mail and contact the number mentioned in mail, which were answered by the tele-callers working under A4, A5 and A6 in the call center set-up at Kolkata.  On receiving the calls from US citizens who are interested in renewal of services, the tele-callers convince them to take their paid services and make the US nationals / callers pay amount through a payment app (email-to-email money transfer), Gift cards and bank accounts of Peru, USA, Thailand and Singapore provided by A8. Further the gift cards were redeemed through telegram channels and money from the bank accounts were transferred through Bitcoins. A8 looked after the payments made in Bitcoins and shared the booty amount among the Kolkata and Hyderabad teams.

Seizure:

Laptops (10)

Mobiles (20)

Routers (04)

Letter Head (01)

License Agreement (01)

Certificate of Incorporation (01)

Appreciation:

The good work done by Cyberabad Cyber crimes Police will be rewarded suitably.

SD/-

Commissioner of Police,

Cyberabad.