Pramesh S Jain & Dr B Thomas (Special correspondent)
T he Whitefield Division police of Whitefield and Mahadevapura police have busted a fake call centres and arrested 11 persons that were running phishing operations targeting bank customers in the United States have been arrested.All the four fake number plate buses which were used to ply their employees also seized.
All the 11 accused hails from Gujarat.
Senior officer told reporters,a credible information was received by Whitefield police inspector and Mahadevapura police inspector that a organized cyber call centre is set up in their jurisdiction by some people and are cheating people.
After receiving information a high value meeting was called by DCP Whitefield,Girish S,to constitute the operation and raid the call centres after collecting all information.
DCP Whitefield,Girish S,ACP, Shanthamallappa with inspectors and crime staff with additional staff swung into action and conducted simultaneous searches on the evening of 07-07-2022 at around 10pm at two premises at Ethical Infotech Pvt Ltd.And Gayathri Tech Park in Whitefield on information regarding an organized fake call cyber fraud being run .
During the searches,the team found the call centre running is illegally and arrested nearly 72 callers working for the company running the fraud and the main kingpins were also arrested.
During raid Around 138 computer systems and other equipment have been seized.
Preliminary investigations reveal that the entire racket was being run by two belonging to Ahmedabad,Gujarat,employing young graduates from various places across India mainly Maharashtra,Gujarat,Rajasthan,Haryana and Delhi .
Callers mainly targeted victims from the United States of America and the modus operandi involved sending messages to potential targets through Text messages,voice mail etc that a fraudulent/suspect transaction or purchase,is noticed in one of their accounts such as a bank account or Amazon account and that they are calling on behalf of Amazon or the bank to resolve the fraudulent transaction.
They would finally zero in on gullible victims who trust the callers and then pursue them till they part with their social security numbers,Bank Account details etc and siphon off money through various means such as Untraceable money transfer Apps such as Amazon Gift cards , Cryptocurrency and even wire transfers .
The accused were also seen to be using vans disguised as school vans to transport the employees ,Two cases are taken up under Whitefield division CEN Police Station and special teams have been constituted to Investigate the Crime.
The raids were carried out after obtaining search warrants from the court on two premises of Ethical Infotech Pvt Ltd,one in Silver Soft Tech Park,EPIP,and another at Gayatri Tech Park, Whitefield, on Thursday night around 10 p.m.
The police arrested six persons hailing from Gujarat,and seized 132 desktops and Rs.15 lakh in cash from the premises at EPIP, and five persons from the Gayatri Tech Park premises; and recovered 127 desktops,4 laptops,150 headphones,10 hard discs,and six mobile phones,besides Rs.18 lakh in cash.
Finally Bengaluru Police Commissioner C H Pratap Reddy has appreciated Addl CP East A subramanyeshwara Rao DCP Whitefield Girish S ACP,Shanthamallappa,PIs,as,Prashanth Varni,Nagaraj,PSI,Smt.Sarojini Vagmorre,Vinod,Arun Kumar,and crime staff as,Vittal Dandhin,Ravi Vadar,Chandrappa,Manjanna Gowda,Ravi KL,Shivanand,Smt.Deepa Hiremath,Sandesh,Sharan,Praveen and Ms.Triveni has been appreciated for the exemplary and excellent work done by them in busted the fake call centre racket who were cheating US people siting in Bengaluru a suitable reward will be given to whole team he added.