Indian law enforcers have busted a local cyber fraud gang accused of duping UK, US and Australian victims with tech support scams, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA).
Officers from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided a call center used by the group in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, last week, after an 18-month operation, the NCA said.
The CBI teamed up with the NCA, the FBI and Microsoft to identify the cybercrime group operating the call center as part of Operation Chakra-V.
UK victims are said to have lost at least £390,000 after receiving scareware popups on their PC claiming their machine had been hacked. Scammers from the call center posing as tech support representatives from Microsoft would then trick their victims into paying to fix the non-existent issues.
Read more on call center fraud: Indian Police Bust Illegal Call Center
Over 100 victims from the UK were identified by the NCA, which worked via its liaison offices in the US and India to help coordinate the operation.
Groundbreaking Collaboration
The investigation apparently began in early 2024 when NCA International Liaison Officers in Washington DC received information from Microsoft, which they then compared with City of London Police’s Action Fraud Reports.
Their job was made harder by the fact that the scammers used a range of tactics to disguise their identity – including spoofed phone numbers and VoIP calls routed through multiple servers in several countries.
After collecting evidence from victims and identifying several suspects, the NCA then briefed the CBI following a visit to India earlier this year.
Nick Sharp, deputy director of the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC), claimed that the center plays a “unique role” in collaborating with overseas law enforcement agencies.
“This case demonstrates the success we can have when we harness expertise from across the public and private sectors, and work hand in hand with partners abroad to target fraudsters, wherever they are,” he added.
“It is an outstanding example of the value of the operational arrangement reached between the UK and the US last year specifically to tackle call centre fraud.”
CBI officers arrested two people during the raid, including the alleged ringleader of the call center-based operation, which local reports claim was called “FirstIdea.”
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