NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday said it has busted a cyber crime syndicate by arresting six of its alleged members, who targeted Japanese citizens as their victims.
The six accused were apprehended following searches at 19 locations in Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, officials in the agency said.
They said the accused have been identified as Ashu Singh (Delhi); Kapil Ghakhar (Panipat, Haryana); Rohit Maurya from Ayodhya; and Shubham Jaiswal, Vivek Raj and Adarsh Kumar from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.
“As part of its ongoing efforts to combat cyber-enabled financial crimes under Operation Chakra-V, the CBI on May 28 conducted coordinated searches... the operation culminated in the arrest of six key operatives and the dismantling of two illegal call centres engaged in a sophisticated transnational tech support scam targeting Japanese citizens,” the agency said in an official statement after conducting ‘Operation Chakra-V’.
The CBI had earlier registered a case based on credible intelligence indicating the existence of a cyber crime syndicate cheating foreign nationals, particularly those from Japan, by posing as technical support personnel from reputed multinational corporations, including Microsoft.
The syndicate operated call centres through which prospective victims were deceived into believing that their electronic devices were compromised. On this pretext, they were coerced into transferring funds into mule accounts for “fixing” the problem.
After registering the case, the CBI worked in close coordination with the National Police Agency of Japan and Microsoft Corporation. “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,” it said.
Initial analysis of the materials gathered so far “confirm that the scam leveraged advanced social engineering techniques and technical subterfuge to manipulate victims and extract money under false pretences,” said an official.