HYDERABAD: Sixteen persons who posed as employees of a private sector bank and allegedly cheated the public of Rs three crore and against whom 166 cases have been registered nationwide, have been arrested after two fake call centers were busted, Cyberabad Police said here on Wednesday.
Nine of them were arrested in New Delhi after police raided fake call centers and later seven more were nabbed from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, Cyberabad Commissioner of Police Stephen Raveendra told reporters here.
The Commissioner said the gang was involved in 34 cases in Cyberabad Police Commissionerate and 166 cases all over India and cheated the public to the tune of Rs 3 crore after posing themselves as bank employees.
Police said the fraudsters have vast experience in the banking field. By using spoofing calling applications and posing as the private bank's employees, they contacted credit cardholders.
Then they collected OTPs by misguiding the customers in the name of activation of card or deactivation of insurance or increasing the credit card limit, police said adding after collecting OTPs, the fraudsters make transactions in their websites using the credit card details of the victims.
For this purpose, they registered six websites and three individual merchants linked them with payment gateways and used them to collect the swindled amount into their bank accounts, police added.
The Cyberabad Police said they took up the probe on a complaint from a customer, who lost Rs 97,996 after a woman caller posing as a representative from the bank trapped the person by using a similar modus operandi.
A total of 16 accused were arrested so far in this operation, seven more accused are absconding, Raveendra said, adding that some more call centers run by the kingpin needed to be identified.