New Delhi: The counter-intelligence wing of the Jammu and Kashmir Police Thursday busted an illegal call centre operating from downtown Srinagar, and arrested seven suspects for allegedly targeting international internet users.
Operating from the Rangreth neighbourhood, a well-known industrial marketplace in Srinagar, the accused were allegedly generating virtual contact numbers (internet-powered phone numbers that do not need SIM cards) and targeting international users through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), J&K police officers said. Predominantly, users in the US, the UK and Canada were on their target list, the counter-intelligence wing said in a statement.
The seven accused were identified as Numai, Zahi, Iqbal, Faiq, Saleem, Mushtaq, and Mukhtar—all local residents.
Counter-Intelligence Kashmir (CIK), a specialised unit of the J&K Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID), has booked the accused under sections 112 (petty organised crime), 316 (criminal breach of trust), 318 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 319 (cheating by personation), and 336 (forgery) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, as well as section 66-D of the Information Technology Act, which deals with offences amounting to cheating by personation using computer resources or communication devices, such as phones or computers.
In the raids, police recovered 13 mobile phones, 9 laptops, and VoIP systems, along with SIM cards and networking devices. The seized phones included high-end iPhone and Samsung models.
Modus operandi
Officers aware of the developments said that the “syndicate” established the call centre without following due processes of registration and authentication with the concerned authorities, and set up VoIP-based calling systems. Through this system, they generated international virtual numbers and masked their real locations by routing through servers and using spoofing techniques.
The targeted users, police officers said, were lured into the scheme through fake advertisements that included toll-free numbers.
“Victims were contacted and deceived into believing that their devices or bank accounts were compromised and they needed to pay for technical support or avoid penalties,” a counter-intelligence officer said.
To make their advertisements appear more credible to potential targets, the syndicate allegedly created a fake Yahoo website and fake Google advertisements for the products and services they were promising.
Once the users called those numbers, their calls were allegedly routed to the call centre in Srinagar, where they were further guided to processes that eventually defrauded them.
“The fraudulently obtained money was then transferred via banking channels, digital wallets, and cryptocurrency and routed through mule accounts. Then it was converted into USDT and other cryptocurrencies and then layered multiple times to evade detection and tracing,” read the counter-intelligence wing’s statement. “Notably, no cash transactions were involved, highlighting the fully digital and sophisticated nature of the crime. The transactions carried so far seem to be running in several crores.”
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)