Latest e-con job: Call centre in Gurugram targeted US citizens with child porn pop-ups

GURUGRAM: The chief minister Flying Squad on Friday busted a sham call centre that used to send pop-up messages with child pornography videos to target Americans and cheat them of hundreds of dollars by offering “technical support”.
Two owners of the call centre and its manager were among the 18 arrested, police said, adding that the key accused are believed to have been involved in several cyber fraud cases in the past.
The pop-up messages sent to the US citizens said their system had been infected with a virus that imports child pornography videos on to their computer systems.
Those who received the messages were encouraged to call on a toll free number for a solution, which would connect them with the call centre in Gurugram’s Udyog Vihar.
The call centre employees told the targets that the videos could land them in legal trouble if corrective measures were not taken immediately, police said. They then convinced the Americans to take help, and charged US $200-900 for “technical support”.
“The payments were received through several online wallets and gift cards,” said Inderjeet Yadav, deputy superintendent of police (DSP), CM Flying Squad.
Police have arrested 18 people, including two who owned the call centre — Shashank Rathod (32), a B.Com first year student, and Abhishek Pandey (26), a Class 12 passout. Both of them are from Ahmedabad and were living in Sector 39 of the city. Call centre manager Vivek Shinde (25) was also arrested.
Cops suspect that the owners were involved in several cyber frauds and had been running sham call centers for a few years. They had been avoiding arrest by changing locations frequently, police said.
“Rathod and Pandey were arrested for the first time. Police are hoping to get more details about their operations. For instance, how they get the details of foreign nationals and who helped them in routing the money paid via digital transactions from the US to India,” said inspector Harish, member of the CM Flying Squad.
He said the raid was carried out after a tip-off on Friday. “A total of 22 callers, including four women, were found working there,” he added.
An FIR was registered at the Udyog Vihar police station on Friday. The accused were booked under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and under relevant provisions of the IT Act. They were sent to two days in police remand.
Scores of call centres targeting American and Canadian citizens have been busted in the city in recent months.
Their modus operandi have ranged from threatening their targets with tax notices to sending fake virus alerts and impersonating service executives of leading tech companies.
Late last month, a sham call centre operating out of DLF-2 was allegedly cheating foreign nationals by pretending to be members of the Federal Police Department. Two owners were arrested and over Rs 13 lakh recovered by the police.