Pramesh S Jain
The Karnataka State Cyber Command has busted four fake call centres in Bengaluru that were allegedly cheating U.S. citizens by impersonating a prominent American accounting firm,police said.
Acting on specific intelligence inputs,officials of the Cyber Crime Police Station (South East),along with the Special Cyber Cell,conducted coordinated raids at four locations across Bengaluru where the illegal call centres were operating.
According to investigators,the accused were posing as representatives of “Quick Book”,a reputed U.S.-based accounting company, and allegedly duped American citizens by offering fake tax advice,licence renewal services and counterfeit software licence keys.
The fraudsters reportedly collected huge amounts of money from victims in the guise of service charges.
Police said the call centre employees used fake identities resembling those of U.S.officials to gain the trust of victims and carry out the fraud.
During the raids,police seized 44 SSDs,two mobile phones,two laptops,nine CPUs,pre-written scripts used to communicate with victims,and several other electronic accessories allegedly used in the cyber fraud operation.
The arrested accused have been identified as Prashanth from Delhi and Akash from Uttar Pradesh.
Investigations revealed that the accused had allegedly floated a company named “Circle Square LLC”and used multiple shell companies to siphon off large sums of money obtained from U.S. citizens.
According to Pranob Mohanty,the accused were running the scam through a registered firm named Reckoning Service Private Limited.
Though the company claimed to offer IT-related solutions, the accused allegedly impersonated employees of US-based tax consulting firm QuickBooks and cheated American citizens by offering fake tax consultation services.
Cyber Command officials conducted raids at four offices linked to the operation—two in Koramangala and one each in HSR Layout and Choodasandra.The premises have been seized for further investigation.
Investigators said the accused had recruited unemployed youths from Bengaluru and other states and trained them using prepared scripts to lure victims.
The employees were allegedly given US accent training to convince victims that they were speaking to genuine representatives from an American tax consultancy firm.
He further said nearly 120 employees were working for the operation and were provided salaries and accommodation by the accused.
Preliminary investigations suggest the racket had been functioning for the last four years.Cyber Command officials said initial findings revealed financial transactions exceeding Rs.40 crore in the last few months alone.
Investigators have also found that the accused allegedly floated several shell companies,and further inquiry is underway to determine their role in the scam network.
Officials said the Karnataka State Cyber Command will coordinate with concerned US authorities through Interpol as part of the ongoing investigation.
