Tech support racket busted, 14 held in Delhi

The Delhi Police on Thursday claimed to have busted a cheating racket that was allegedly running under the garb of an international call centre and duping citizens of the US and Canada by offering them technical support and solutions to software problems. Fourteen persons were arrested by the police.

The call centre was operating from a building in west Delhi’s Kirti Nagar. A total of 259 computers, which were used in the crime, were seized from there, said the police.

Deputy commissioner of police (cyber cell) Anyesh Roy said the arrested people cheated hundreds of people across the US and Canada through tele-calling. “The racket was busted following investigation into a complaint sent by a US national to the cyber cell. He alleged he had been cheated by a group of persons from India in the name of providing technical support while he was looking for online services to fix his computer’s software problems,” Roy said.

The police said the interrogation of the arrested men revealed that they started their careers as tele-callers and later started their own call centres to earn quick money. They recruited men and women, mostly between the ages of 19 and 25, and trained them as tele-callers to make sure they are able to convince their clients in US and Canada that they provided genuine services, the police said.

A senior investigator, requesting anonymity, said four key accused persons created a fake website with a fake US address and tasked four or five tech-savvy associates with ‘search engine optimisation. These persons ensured that their website and tech support helpline numbers pop-up as one of the top results on internet searches by clients for various online technical supports and solutions.

“When the clients called on the numbers provided on the website, the racketeers used to take remote access of their computers or laptops in order to fix the problem. Thereafter, they tricked the clients into paying a certain amount online for the services. But after collecting the money, the racketeers used to disconnect the call and stopped responding to further calls or requests,” the officer said.

Police said the conmen also took assistance from some data vendors and call-vendors, who maintain data of clients seeking various online services.

These vendors used to illegally share data of such customers and even diverted their service-seeking calls to the racketeers, for which each client is charged $8 to $10 per call, the police said.