The Cyberabad police in Hyderabad have busted an international fake caller racket. They raided a fake international VOIP call center in Vittal Rao Nagar, Madhapur and arrested a total of 115 people. This includes a six-member inter-State fraudster gang and 109 employees. The suspects were impersonating as executives of Amazon and cheating foreign customers.
The arrested individuals have been identified as Mohd. Ansari Mohirfan, GhanchiAkib, Pradeep Vinod Rathod, Osman Ghani Khan, Shivam Pradhan, Deepu Thapar, and 109 others. The police discovered that the organizers collected customer data from third-party portals and made internet calls to citizens in the USA. They pretended to be officials from the US Customs and Border Protection Cell Department and scared the victims by claiming that they had received a parcel containing suspicious substances in their name.
The fraudsters would then collect personal information from the targeted individuals and threaten them with legal action from the US Customs and Border Protection Force. They would force the victims to purchase gift cards or vouchers at supermarkets in order to cancel the alleged parcel. Out of fear, the victims would comply and purchase the gift cards, later sharing the redeem code with the fraudsters.
The fraudsters would then sell the gift cards at discounted rates on websites and earn cryptocurrency. They would further convert the cryptocurrency into Indian currency with the help of vendors. This gang has been active for the past two-and-a-half years, cheating US citizens for easy money. The Madhapur police have already booked two cases against them. During the raid, cash, laptops, computer monitors, and other gadgets were seized from the spot.
