The myth of impunity for cyber cons for overseas tech support scams was busted in transcontinental raids in North America and Asia by IFSO, Special Cell, Delhi Police in coordination with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a Canadian Law Enforcement Agency.

Federal Bureau of Investigation, USA approached Delhi Police through the Interpol Wing of CBI with details of cyber criminals who have been operating full-fledged call centres from Delhi and adjoining areas to defraud innocent senior citizens of the US on the pretext of providing them with tech support against the malfunctioning of their computers, informed DCP IFSO Prashant Gautam on Friday.

In the raids, the Delhi Police arrested three people from India while three others were arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Canadian Law Enforcement Agency from Toronto.

As per information shared by the USA, there are more than 20,000 victims who have fallen prey to the scheme executed by the criminals sitting in India. A revenue loss of more than 10 million USD occurred between 2012 to 2020.

The tech support scam involved various fraudulent entities providing a platform to threat actors in camouflaging their criminal activities as ordinary business affairs and mobilizing the proceeds of crime through banking channels.
In the instant scam of Tech Support, pop-ups are sent to a large number of targeted senior citizens who are not tech-savvy.

The pop-up alerts the victim to a Microsoft issue or fraudulent activity that must be addressed immediately by calling a designated telephone number on the pop-up advertisement.

On contacting the designated number, the victim is convinced to pay a certain amount for fixing the ‘so-called’ technical glitch through cheque, money order or PayPal etc. Meanwhile, control is taken over the victim’s computer through voluntarily shared code of any RDP (Remote Desktop Program) like AnyDesk, LogMeIn, etc.

In some instances, they re-victimise the same person to pay again and again. These types of threat vectors targeting the US senior citizens were found to be originating in Canada or India.

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) shared complaints from two specific victims of such fraud with Delhi police through Interpol.

Acting upon the complaints and inputs, IFSO (Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Operations), a Cybercrime Coordination Unit of Special Cell, Delhi Police registered a case vide FIR No. 364/22 under the provisions of cheating and conspiracy at Police Station Special Cell and arrested three persons namely Jatin Lamba, Harshad Madaan and Vikas Gupta in Delhi by conducting overnight raids whereas their counterpart Jayant Bhatia was arrested by Canadian Law Enforcement Agency from Toronto and Kulwinder Singh was arrested by FBI, USA from New Jersey on the same day.

Jatin Lamba with his brother Gagan Lamba was running a company under the name and style of M/s PC Support and Care from Ganesh Nagar, New Delhi, camouflaging as a tech support company and used to run call centres to victimize US Citizens.

Vikas Gupta worked as a calling agent to provide tech support to fix the glitch in the computer of the victim whereas Harshad Madaan used to mobilize the cheated funds to the account of the M/s PC Support and Care on a commission basis. Harshad had arranged bank accounts in fraudulently created companies ‘WebMaster’ and ‘Webleaders’ in the United States. Forensic scrutiny of Harshad Madaan’s laptop led to the recovery of the statement of the commission received by him from M/s PC.

During the course of the investigation, 02 laptops and 03 mobile phones were seized from the accused persons.
One company namely Techspine Technologies Pvt. Ltd. was also found to be incorporated with ROC- Delhi and Haryana by Vikas Gupta with Aditya Gupta as its director.

During his interrogation, Vikas Gupta stated that the company was created to run a call centre from Faridabad to cheat US citizens. However, it could not take off and so he ended up as a calling agent on behalf of M/s PC Support and Care.

Scrutiny of Bank Accounts of PC Support and Care has revealed huge transactions from abroad. The total amount of credit entries was found to be Rs 4,36,45376 during the period from 12th January 2012 to the closing date i.e November 6, 2020.

Accused Harshad Madaan and Vikas Gupta have been granted 03 days’ police remand by the court for carrying out a detailed investigation into the case.

Accused Jatin Lamba shall be produced before the court tomorrow. One of the active members
of the gang and Director of M/s PC Support and Care is at large and efforts are going on to nab him. Further investigation is in progress.