In a major operation, the Delhi Police busted an international fake call centre that was duping US nationals on the pretext of providing technical support in the name of Microsoft Technical Support executive and arrested four people.
The accused were identified as Saurav Pahwa, a resident of New Delhi, Arun Kumar, a resident of Bulandshahar, UP, Neeraj Mehra, a resident of Delhi and Vishnu Vardhan, a resident of Hyderabad.
Furnishing details about the operation, Dy. Commissioner of Police (northwest District) Usha Rangnani said on February 1, credible information about an illegal call center at Hudson Lane was received after which they conducted an inquiry into the matter and local sources were deployed to check the authenticity of the information.
"It was revealed that a fake call centre was being run from the second floor of a house at Hudson Lane, Delhi, for cheating US nationals in the name of providing technical support using the identity of Microsoft Tech Support Team," the DCP said. A raid was conducted on the premises and all the four accused were apprehended from the spot.
The official said on sustained interrogation they disclosed that they had opened the call centre recently and started duping innocent persons, mainly US nationals on the pretext of providing technical support using the name of the Microsoft Technical support team. The police, after registering an FIR under sections 419, 420, and 34 of the Indian Penal Code, arrested all the four accused persons.
Senior official Rangnani informed that the initial investigation revealed that the racketeers allegedly used to gather information about various IP addresses mainly from the USA. Thereafter, they used to send some messages or pop-ups on their system. Afterward, they used to call the victims using web calling facilities and introduce themselves as Microsoft Technical support executives.
"They used to scare the innocent victims that their system has been hacked and their personal information, data, and computer are at stake and used to demand 100 US dollars for eradicating the fake pop up or message. On the same pretext, they were duping US nationals," the official said.
Further investigation in the case is on.
