Twenty-eight members of two inter-State gangs operating fake call centres of State Bank of India, Indiabulls Dhani Loan Bazaar, and involved in thousands of cases across the country were arrested by Cyberabad cyber crime police.
The gangs, operating from the national capital, duped a large number of bank customers for hundreds of crores, Police Commisioner M. Stephen Raveendra said, while announcing the arrest of the accused on Thursday.
Fourteen members of the SBI fake call centre gang were involved in 14 cases in Cyberabad Commissionerate. “After getting customers data (name, mobile number, and location) from SBI’s direct sale agents, the fraudsters call the customers pretending as bank employees, and collected card details and OTPs by misguiding the customers on the pretext of activation of card or deactivation of insurance or enhancing the credit card limit etc,” the officer said.
After getting the OTPs, the fraudsters would make transactions in house rental sites like Housing.com and Noboker.com, and later transfer and withdraw the money from their bank accounts.
Mr. Raveendra stated that it was the biggest fraud in the country and this year alone the gang had made over 33,000 calls and cheated thousands of customers. “We believe more than 3,000 cases are registered against them across the country,” he said.
The kingpin of the gang, Nikhil Madaan, who established a call centre at Uttam Nagar in Delhi, had vast experience in the banking sector and took the calls to look genuine, he took reseller IDs for the spoofing applications like MoSIP and Silver Dialer from one Murshid Alam, who purchased them from Farman Hussain, and called people using SBI customer care number.
Using those applications, the fraudsters can generate calls through the desired number dissimulate the original number. “By using spoofing call applications (MoSIP& Silver Dialer) fraudsters contacted the SBI credit card holders as SBI employees by disguising original customer care number,” he said.
Farman Hussain, who was arrested in Bihar, developed ProspokeHD.com and Round2Hell.org websites, where user IDs for the spoofing applications are available on payment. He supplied those IDs to fraudsters across the country and even to some gangs in the Middle East.
Based on the complaint lodged by an SBI Bank customer who was duped for ₹1.64 lakh, the cybercrime police— led by DCP (Crimes) Rohini Priyadarshini— registered a case and sent teams to Delhi to nab the accused.
The officer said that Murshid Alam and Farman Hussain provided spoofing applications to the recently busted RBL fake call centre. They seized 30 mobiles phones, three laptops, an SUV, a bike and a router from the possession of the accused.
When asked if there was any cash or property seizure in the case, the Commissioner said that there were several undisclosed and hidden assets, and they would soon conduct a forensic audit.
Further, in Dhani Loan Bazaar fake loan call centre fraud, the police arrested 14 persons involved in nine cases in Cyberabad and five in other districts. Mr. Raveendra said the gang developed a fake website of Dhani Loan Bazaar and after getting the details of the prospective loanees through their fake website, the telecallers would call them posing as a genuine lending platform and cheat people.
“They would inform the prospective loanees that they are eligible for a personal loan and take money from them for different charges, such as processing fee, insurance fees, GST, loan-application fee, subsidy and electronic clearance charges,” he said.
