International fake call racket busted by Cyberabad police

Hyderabad: The Cyberabad police on Friday busted an international fake caller racket. The sleuths raided a fake international VOIP call centre and arrested 115 persons, including a six-member inter-State fraudster gang, and 109 employees at Vittal Rao Nagar, Madhapur The suspects were found to be impersonating as executives of a reputed e-commerce firm, Amazon, and cheated foreign customers. The arrested persons were: Mohd. Ansari Mohirfan, GhanchiAkib, 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 made internet calls to the citizens in the USA posing as US Customs and Border Protection Cell Department officials. The suspects scared the 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 threatened 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 said parcel,” said M Stephen Raveendra, Police Commissioner, Cyberabad. Out of fear, the victims purchased gift vouchers and informed the fraudsters, who then asked them to share the redeem code of the gift cards. Later, fraudsters sold it at discounted rates on websites and earn cryptocurrency. They 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 the 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.