Kolkata: The Bengal Cyber Cell Wing and Bidhannagar Police carried out multiple raids on illegal call centres running in Sector V in Salt Lake, Lake Town, and Narendrapur to curb illegal call centre activities in Kolkata and its suburbs—especially those operating from IT parks and even condos.
Cops recovered over Rs 96 lakh of defrauded money, even as monetary transactions worth more than 204 crore in bitcoins were found in the past year. A total of 27 persons, including four women, were arrested in the past 72 hours, and three illegal call centres were sealed. Huge seizures of computer hardware, attendance registers, and other crucial evidence were also made.
In the first raid, a joint team of Bidhannagar Cyber Cell and Electronic Complex raided a fake call centre running from Imagine Tech Park in Sector V in Salt Lake and arrested three persons.
Rs 68 lakh was recovered from the accused, with around Rs 9.4 lakh being seized from the owner Avinash Jaiswal’s Chinar Park residence. Besides Jaiswal, who also has a flat at Burtolla, two others, Sk Saju of Entally and Devender Singh of Behala, were arrested.
Police said, the accused operated for the past four months from this address, and data of over one lakh overseas customers, mostly US citizens, were recovered. “The victims were called on the pretext of tech support and then charged after sending them a message—inbuilt in the software’s call centre—that stated that bug issues of the victim’s computer were solved. All monetary transactions were carried out through gold coins or bitcoins,” said cops.
In the second incident, officers of the Cyber Crime Wing (CCW)raided an illegal call centre at a flat on the 11th floor of a posh condo located at Chowhati near Narendrapur. “The illegal call centre was being run from the condo under Baruipur Police District. We arrested three persons, including the main accused, Joy Halder, who was cheating US citizensby posing as Microsoft employees. After questioning Halder, another accused, Shafiquat Shafique of Beniapukur, was arrested, and cash worth Rs 26 lakh was seized. We found a total transaction amount of USDT 2.3 crore (approx.), equivalent to Rs 204 crore INR (approx.) over the past year, was collected by the accused from his crypto account statements,” said Anjali Singh, DIG (headquarters), CCW.
In the most significant operation, CCW officers conducted a raid at Lake Town where they uncovered an illegal call centre operating under the name “Ostenix Solutions”. Led by Samir Khan, this operation targeted Australian citizens by impersonating employees of National Broadband Networks of Australia. The team arrested 21 people, including four women, and seized substantial evidence, including computers, mobile phones, and crucial documents.
The fraudsters used sophisticated software called ‘Eye-Beam” configured with foreign IP addresses from France and Finland to make their scam appear legitimate. The police seized 29 computers, two laptops, 23 mobile phones, various storage devices, networking equipment, and extensive documentation of victim data. Four of the accused were taken into police remand for further investigation.
Cops recovered over Rs 96 lakh of defrauded money, even as monetary transactions worth more than 204 crore in bitcoins were found in the past year. A total of 27 persons, including four women, were arrested in the past 72 hours, and three illegal call centres were sealed. Huge seizures of computer hardware, attendance registers, and other crucial evidence were also made.
In the first raid, a joint team of Bidhannagar Cyber Cell and Electronic Complex raided a fake call centre running from Imagine Tech Park in Sector V in Salt Lake and arrested three persons.
Rs 68 lakh was recovered from the accused, with around Rs 9.4 lakh being seized from the owner Avinash Jaiswal’s Chinar Park residence. Besides Jaiswal, who also has a flat at Burtolla, two others, Sk Saju of Entally and Devender Singh of Behala, were arrested.
Police said, the accused operated for the past four months from this address, and data of over one lakh overseas customers, mostly US citizens, were recovered. “The victims were called on the pretext of tech support and then charged after sending them a message—inbuilt in the software’s call centre—that stated that bug issues of the victim’s computer were solved. All monetary transactions were carried out through gold coins or bitcoins,” said cops.
In the second incident, officers of the Cyber Crime Wing (CCW)raided an illegal call centre at a flat on the 11th floor of a posh condo located at Chowhati near Narendrapur. “The illegal call centre was being run from the condo under Baruipur Police District. We arrested three persons, including the main accused, Joy Halder, who was cheating US citizensby posing as Microsoft employees. After questioning Halder, another accused, Shafiquat Shafique of Beniapukur, was arrested, and cash worth Rs 26 lakh was seized. We found a total transaction amount of USDT 2.3 crore (approx.), equivalent to Rs 204 crore INR (approx.) over the past year, was collected by the accused from his crypto account statements,” said Anjali Singh, DIG (headquarters), CCW.
In the most significant operation, CCW officers conducted a raid at Lake Town where they uncovered an illegal call centre operating under the name “Ostenix Solutions”. Led by Samir Khan, this operation targeted Australian citizens by impersonating employees of National Broadband Networks of Australia. The team arrested 21 people, including four women, and seized substantial evidence, including computers, mobile phones, and crucial documents.
The fraudsters used sophisticated software called ‘Eye-Beam” configured with foreign IP addresses from France and Finland to make their scam appear legitimate. The police seized 29 computers, two laptops, 23 mobile phones, various storage devices, networking equipment, and extensive documentation of victim data. Four of the accused were taken into police remand for further investigation.