A Fake International call center here on Friday was busted by Madhapur Police and almost 115 members have been taken into custody for targeting foreign customers through VOIP calls posing as executives from Amazon Company to cheat them.
On a tip off, Madhapur Police has carried out a raid at a fake call center running at Vittal Rao Nagar and all the members have been were arrested by the police for reportedly involved in the illegal activities.
Laptops, 7, CPUs 115, Monitors 94, Routers 4, Mobiles, 120, cash Rs 2.55 thousand and an Audi car was recovered during the raid.
The accused Md. Ansari Mohirfan ( ARJ Solutions), Ghanchi Akib (AG Solutions), Osman Ghani Khan(Vertez solutions), Shivam Pradhan (Floor leader in Vertez solutions), Deepu Thapar (Floor leader in Vertez solutions) and 109 others were brought to Police Station and a Suo-moto case was registered as Cr Nos. 901/2023 and 902/2023 at Madhapur Police Station, Cyberabad.
According to Police, the accused were running the business by collecting data like phone numbers, personal data from callcentersindia.com which is a Leads Generation portal. The employees of the call center make calls using the VOIP calling service provider VC Dial, to the US citizens posing as US customs & Border Protection cell department. The fraudsters would scare them saying that they have received a parcel in the victim’s name, containing suspicious substances.
b. Then the employees of the call center would collect the personal information of the US citizens i.e. Name, House address, City, etc. and later they threaten them that the US custom & Border protection force will raise legal action against them and force them to purchase gift card/vouchers of amazon/apple company at super markets so as to cancel/return the said parcel.
c. The US citizens who are in fear, purchase the gift vouchers and inform the call center employees. Then the call centers employees ask them to give redeem code of the gift cards.
d. Later, fraudsters sell it at discounted rates on PAXFUL website. When the code is redeemed, the purchasers from Paxfulsend money to fraudsters in the form of cryptocurrency. After that the accused converts that crypto currency into USDT (Stablecoin) by using wallets on the cryptocurrency exchange platform called TRUST.
e. They then search for purchaser of crypto on local bit coin vendors website who are willing to purchase crypto while making payment in cash or through IMPS and UPI transactions. On finalizing of vendors, they transfer USDT to those vendor’s wallets which need not be registered on Trust platform. The vendors then make payments in cash through unknown people at different locations. The fraudsters do not get previous information about the handler until right before the exchange. This way they convert cryptocurrency into INR.
2) Facts in FIR NO.902/2023:-
a. the employees of the call centers randomly make calls to US/Internationals citizens and when they receives voice message the tele callers asked them that “You have booked order from Amazon (Example: I-Phone 13, MAC Book, Apple Airpods etc.,) and if yes, you have to press 1
b. If any customer response to the IVR calls and when they press 1, the call automatically connects to the accused Tele callers. The tele caller asked them to provide the order ID. When the customers not having ID, the tele caller put the customer on hold and after few minutes the tele caller put them in fear that an order was placed and the amount will deduct from their account.
c. They inform that due to this particular transaction their credit score is going to be affected. By deceiving the words of the tele callers, the customers reveals their names, age, sex, residential address, bank details etc., and inform them that their team leader will call the customers back to solve the problem and disconnects the call.
d. Later the Tele callers share the details of the customers to the Team leaders intern the team leaders calls the customers and poses them as Amazon Executive and informs the customers that they have cancelled the order and amount will not be deducting from their accounts. The team leaders convince the customers and makes them to purchase gift cards from Amazon.
e. He collects the Redemption code of the gift vouchers and they share the codes to the company Director Mohammed Zubair Ahmed. The company director then puts up these gift vouchers and their redemption codes on PAXFUL website. When the code is redeemed, they get money in the form of crypto currency. After that the accused change that crypto currency into USDT using Trust wallet and then sell them to local Bit coin vendors and get Indian currency. Likewise, since two and half years the accused cheating the US Citizens and earning easy money.