4th Such Centre Busted in 3 Months
Lucknow: Sixteen people, including four women, were detained after police busted a suspected cyber fraud call centre allegedly targeting US citizens from a commercial building barely a few hundred metres from the Kapoorthala police outpost in Aliganj early Friday.The action is the fourth such suspected international cyber fraud call centre busted in Lucknow in the past three months.The centre was operating from the first floor of Ridhya Plaza. The operation came to light during a routine morning patrol around 4 am, when constable Vipin Verma spotted a man standing suspiciously outside the building.The man claimed he was waiting for a friend. When asked to call him, the friend reportedly said he was in Thakurganj, raising the constable’s suspicion. The policeman kept watch and soon heard the building’s shutter being opened. He subsequently saw several people entering the premises and alerted senior officers.A police team raided the office around 7 am and found 12 men and four women inside. They were questioned for several hours before being detained.DCP, North, Amit Kumar Anand said a preliminary investigation indicated that the centre was allegedly targeting American citizens by posing as a technical-support service.Police said the gang allegedly operated fake customer care and technical support numbers on the internet. When US citizens contacted the numbers for assistance with computer or software-related problems, the calls were allegedly routed to the Lucknow centre.The operators allegedly posed as representatives of software or service companies and persuaded victims to download remote-access applications.After gaining access to the victims’ devices, they allegedly obtained sensitive banking and debit and credit card information. The centre reportedly received around 50 calls a day.Police identified the suspected mastermind as Pranshu Kushwaha of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, who allegedly operates a company named Nexolan Solution. Investigators are searching for him and other members of the network suspected to be handling the financial operations.The office was reportedly rented around four months ago, while most employees had joined only one to three months before the raid.The landlord reportedly told police that the premises were rented in May for Rs 1 lakh a month, to be paid entirely in cash. He also told investigators that employees were not allowed to carry mobile phones inside the office.Additional DCP, North, Naveen Kumar Singh, said the detained people were being questioned.
