Delhi: CBI busts 2 illegal call centres, arrests 6 for scamming Japanese citizens

The CBI arrested six people and dismantled two illegal call centres for allegedly cheating Japanese citizens using tech support scams, officials said Thursday.

After registering the case as part of its crackdown on cybercriminals in Operation Chakra V, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) worked closely with the Japan National Police Agency and Microsoft to identify the syndicate members and their locations.

“This collaborative international engagement proved critical in identifying the perpetrators and tracing the operational structure of the syndicates, ultimately leading to the successful crackdown in India,” the CBI said in a statement.

Once the locations were identified, the CBI teams swooped down on 19 locations in Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday during which six alleged gang members were arrested and two illegal call centres were dismantled.

The arrested were identified as Ashu Singh from Delhi, Kapil Ghakhar from Panipat, Rohit Maurya from Ayodhya, Shubham Jaiswal, Vivek Raj and Adarsh Kumar from Varanasi.

“The syndicate operated call centres designed to appear as legitimate customer service centres, through which victims were deceived into believing that their electronic devices were compromised,” the CBI said, adding that under this pretext, victims were coerced into transferring funds into mule accounts.

The searches resulted in the seizure of a trove of digital evidence, devices and documents “indicative of the large-scale operations of the syndicate.”

Preliminary analysis confirms that the scam leveraged advanced social engineering techniques and technical subterfuge to manipulate victims and extract money under false pretences.