TRANS-CONTINENTAL RAIDS IN NORTH AMERICA AND ASIA BY IFSO
ACCUSED HARSHAD MADAAN AND VIKAS GUPTA HAVE BEEN GRANTED 03 DAYS POLICE REMAND BY THE COURT FOR CARRYING OUT DETAILED INVESTIGATION IN 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 COMPUTER AND CARE IS AT LARGE AND EFFORTS ARE GOING ON TO NAB HIM.
(MOREPIC1) Fac2News/New Delhi
Special Cell, Delhi Police in co-ordination with Federal Bureau of Investigation and a Canadian Law Enforcement Agency Federal Bureau of Investigation, USA approached Delhi Police through Interpol Wing of CBI with details of cyber criminals who have been operating fullfledged call centers from Delhi and adjoining areas to defraud innocent senior citizens of US on the pretext of providing them tech support against malfunctioning of their computers.
As per information shared by USA, there are more than twenty thousand victims who have fallen prey to the scheme of crime devised and executed by the criminals sitting in India and causing revenue loss to the state of more than 10 million USD between 2012 to 2020.
The tech support scam involved the use of various fraudulent entities to provide a platform to threat actors in camouflaging their criminal activitiesas an ordinary business affairs and mobilizing the proceeds of crime through banking channels.
In the instant scam of Tech Support, Pop-ups are sent to the large number of targeted senior citizens who are not tech-savvy to initially alert the victims to a Microsoft issue or some type of fraudulent activity that must be addressed immediately by calling a designated telephone number on the pop-up advertisement. On contacting the designated number, victim is convinced to pay certain amount for fixing the so called technical glitch by taking over the control of the computer of victim through voluntarily shared code of any RDP (Remote Desktop Program) like AnyDesk, LogMeIn etc.
Generally, it is fake technical issue in the computer of victim but they are convinced to pay certain sum of amount through cheque, money order or PayPal etc. In some instances, they re-victimise the same person to pay again and again. These types of threat vectors targeting US senior citizens were found to be originated from Canada or India.
Federal Bureau of Investigation shared complaint from two specific victims of such fraud with some intelligence with Delhi police through Interpol.(SUBHEAD)
Mr. Prashant P. Gautam, DCP, IFSO, Special Cell, said, 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 & style of m/s PC Support and Care from B-138, Ganesh Nagar, New Delhi camouflaging as a tech support company and used to run call centers to victimize the US Citizens.
Vikas Gupta has been involved in the scam as calling agent to provide the tech support to fix the technical glitch in the computer of victim whereas Harshad Madaan used to mobilize the cheated funds to the account of the M/s PC Support and Care on commission basis as he had arranged bank accounts in a fraudulently created companies WebMaster and Webleaders in United States to collect the amount from victim in US and then transfer the same through wire to the account of PC Support and Care in Delhi.
During course of investigation, 2 Laptops and 3 Mobile Phones were taken into possession from the accused persons. Forensic scrutiny of Harshad Madaan’s laptop led to the recovery of the statement of commission received by him from M/s PC Support and Care for facilitating the transfer of cheated amount from the victims to the account of M/s PC Support and Care Pvt. Ltd., which was incorporated on 17/08/2012 having its registered address at B-138, Ramesh Nagar, Delhi with two directors namely Jatin Lamba and Gagan Lamba.
One company namely Techspine Technologies Pvt. Ltd. is also found to be incorporated with ROC- Delhi & Haryana by Vikas Gupta with Aditya Gupta as its directors. During his interrogation, Vikas Gupta stated that this company was created to run a call center from Faridabad to cheat the US citizens, but it could not take off and 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 and total amount of credit entries to be INR 4,36,45376/- during the period from 12th January 2012 to the closing date i.e 06th November 2020.
Accused Harshad Madaan and Vikas Gupta have been granted 03 days Police Remand by the court for carrying out detailed investigation in 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 Computer and Care is at large and efforts are going on to nab him. Further investigation is in progress.
