Cyber police unearths ‘bogus call centres’ in Srinagar

The Cyber Wing of J&K Police has arrested 23 persons for allegedly duping people through bogus call centres in Srinagar City.

“We have arrested 23 persons and likely more people will be apprehended,” SSP Cyber Police, Tahir Ashraf told Greater Kashmir. “We made arrests after hectic and prolong investigations of the case.”

   

He said the Cyber Police Station Kashmir, Srinagar had received information through reliable sources that some “fake call centres” are running in Kashmir and accordingly the investigation into the matter was taken up.

During the course of investigation, he said, it was found that some individuals were impersonating as executives of multi-national companies under garb of bogus international call centres and duping innocent citizens by offering them technical support and solutions to their software problems.

The SSP said these fake call centre executives were making cold calls, and sending e-mails, pop-ups on computer screens of the victims and used to take remote access of their computers and infect their systems with malware, thus starting extorting money from them in return for help by impersonating as technical support.

“They also made use of electronic signatures of the victims for their illegal financial gains,” he said, adding that these fake call centres would mostly call international citizens and demand their financial and bank details illegally so as to extort money from them, to cause illegal gains to themselves and subsequent losses to the victims.

During the course of further investigation, he said, it surfaced that there is a huge scam of fake call centres in Srinagar City, where a good number of employees are working round the clock.

“These fake call centres have been identified as: Secure Tech Rangreth Srinagar, YSS Micro Technologies Rangreth and Vertex Technology, Karfalli Mohalla Srinagar.”

Acting swiftly, the Cyber Police Station Kashmir Zone Srinagar constituted several teams in collaboration with District Police Srinagar and conducted multiple raids in Rangreth, Karfali Mohalla, Habbakadal and Natipora areas of Srinagar, he said. “During these raids, 23 accused persons involved in running of these illegal fake call centres were arrested.”

In this regard, a case FIR 02/2021 under relevant sections of law stands registered at Cyber Police Station Kashmir Zone Srinagar and further investigation is in progress, he said.

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