New Delhi, Feb 16 (Agency) Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted searches at four locations in Delhi/NCR in an on-going investigation related to a case of alleged cyber-enabled financial fraud against US based victims, the central probe agency said on Thursday. The searches were conducted at four premises of the accused persons, identified as Harish Kumar, Amit Kumar, Rakesh Kumar Athotra and Raj Kumari, and unknown others following which led to recovery of foreign currencies and Rs 3.09 cr, 15 mobile phones and 7 laptops containing remote access application, textnow apps, fake international calling numbers, incriminating documents pertaining to US nationals, crypto investments, chats containing details of the fraud and scripts of talking to US citizens were recovered, CBI said in a statement. During the search, a fake tech support call center was found where the accused/other persons were allegedly involved in online-cheating of US citizens impersonating as the tech support executives, it said. They were allegedly receiving leads from their source and on these leads they would call potential targets in the USA via Textnow application and take control of their systems using remote access software like Any Desk on the pretext of solving issues, it added.
It was further alleged that they would then guide the targets to buy a gift card for installing/ upgrading the security software (which was never actually done) and take the card number from them. It was also alleged that the gift card numbers taken from the targets were sent to an exclusive telegram group for cash redemption through hawala channel, it added. A case was registered on June 10, last year against four accused and unknown others on the allegations that the accused in conspiracy with each other and other unknown persons, had fraudulently gained remote access to the digital resources of unsuspecting victims of USA and transferred the digital assets/crypto currencies from the wallets/accounts of the victims to their wallets.