On Thursday, officials announced that the CBI had conducted searches at four locations in the Delhi-National Capital Region and had seized electronic devices, foreign currency, and more than Rs 3 crore.
According to the sources, the case involves four people named Harish Kumar, Amit Kumar, Rakesh Kumar Athotra, and Raj Kumari who were charged in a FIR filed by the CBI on June 10 of last year for allegedly cheating US citizens by pretending to provide tech support and then taking control of their computers.
According to the spokesperson, the hackers “received leads from their source and, acting on these leads, would call potential targets in the United States via the Textnow application and, under the guise of solving issues, take control of their systems using remote access software like Any Desk.”
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The CBI, with assistance from US investigation agencies, discovered that the four were operating a mobile call centre out of various locations.
The accused would rent laptops from the company, then wipe the hard drive clean before returning them.
The agency searched the premises of the accused and reportedly found around Rs 3,09,64,100 in foreign currency and other valuables.
In addition to the cash, the CBI said it had recovered 15 mobile phones and 7 laptops with evidence of remote access software, Textnow apps, fake international calling numbers, incriminating documents pertaining to US nationals, crypto investments, chats containing details of the alleged fraud, and scripts for talking to US citizens.
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It was claimed that the accused and others were involved in online cheating of US citizens by posing as tech support executives at a fake call centre discovered during the searches.
In addition, it was claimed that they would instruct their victims to purchase a gift card for installing/upgrading the security software (which was never actually done) and then steal the card number.
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RAIDED FOR MONEY AND GADGETS
The homes of suspects Harish Kumar, Amit Kumar, Rakesh Kumar Athotra, and Raj Kumari were searched by the CBI.
In addition to the cash, the agency seized seven laptops with remote access software, Textnow apps, fake international calling numbers, incriminating documents pertaining to US nationals, cryptocurrency investments, chats containing details of the fraud, and scripts for talking to US citizens.
