Online racket busted, 6 held for cheating

Accused ran an illegal telephone exchange to lure victims

March 13, 2019 01:44 am | Updated 01:45 am IST - NEW DELHI

The Delhi police has arrested six persons for allegedly cheating people, mostly residing in the US and Europe, on the pretext of providing them online technical assistance, the police said on Tuesday.

The accused, identified as Mohit Bansal, Udit, Yashwant Singh, Guraman Singh, Rohit Chauhan and Pfokreni Kayio, ran an illegal telephone exchange and used a foreign Internet Protocol (IP) address to lure their victims, they added.

Cash worth ₹7.40 lakh, information technology equipment, including several servers, routers, SIM box, hard disks and SIM cards, used by them have been seized, the police said.

On March 7, the police received a tip-off regarding the racket being operated from Anupam Building in Pitampura. They raided the location and found that the place was being used to run an office from where the accused made and received international calls using dialer through VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol).

Modus operandi

Throwing light on the modus operandi, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Rajiv Ranjan said the victims comprised the customer base of Google, Facebook, Paypal and Apple who would seek help with their passwords and other technical hindrances.

During interrogation, it was revealed that the accused registered themselves on Google Search Engine’s paid services licence for helping customers in troubleshooting, the police said.

They would increase their online presence by keeping them on the top slot of search result, the police added.

They received nearly 50 calls per day and would get around $50 for every call, the officer said.

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