Fake international calls racket busted in Cyberabad

The suspects were found to be impersonating as executives of reputed e-commerce firm, Amazon, and cheated foreign customers.

Hyderabad: The Cyberabad police raided a fake international VOIP call centre and arrested 115 persons including a six-member interstate fraudster gang and 109 call centre employees at Vittal Rao Nagar in Madhapur on Friday.

The suspects were found to be impersonating as executives of reputed e-commerce firm, Amazon, and cheated foreign customers.

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The arrested persons were identified as Mohd. Ansari Mohirfan, Ghanchi Akib, Pradeep Vinod Rathod, Osman Ghani Khan, Shivam Pradhan, Deepu Thapar and 109 others.

According to the police, the organisers fraudulently collected customer data from third party portals and make internet calls to the citizens of United State of America posing as US Customs and Border Protection Cell Department officials. The suspects then scare their victims saying they had received a parcel in their name, containing suspicious substances.

“Putting the targeted person in fear, the fraudsters collect personal information and later threaten them that the US custom and Border Protection Force will raise legal action against them, and force them to purchase gift card or vouchers at super markets so as to cancel the said parcel,” said M.Stephen Raveendra, Police Commissioner, Cyberabad.

Out of fear, the victims purchase the gift vouchers and inform the fraudsters, who then ask them to share the redeem code of the gift cards. Later, fraudsters sell it at discounted rates on websites and earn cryptocurrency. It is further converted into Indian currency with the help of vendors.

The gang has been active since the last two-and-a-half years in cheating US citizens for easy money. Two cheating cases were booked by the Madhapur police against them until now. Cash, laptops, computer monitors and other gadgets were seized from the spot.