Guwahati police busts massive cybercrime racket, 3 arrested, 191 detained

Guwahati police have busted eight illegal call centres which used to scam people in the guise of offering technical support.

Guwahati (Assam): In a major crackdown on illegal call centres andcyber criminals, the Guwahati police have arrested three people who are suspected to be the masterminds of the scam and detained 191 others. The police have also seized a substantial quantity of electronic devices during the raid.

According to police sources, acting on intelligence inputs, the Assam Police carried out raids in various places in Guwahati. At least eight illegal call centres being run by scamsters were discovered in these raids. These call centres were involved in various fraudulent activities, targeting people, especially from abroad, through internet-based phone calls. The call centres had employees from across the country.

Talking to the media at a press conference, Guwahati Police Commissioner Diganta Borah said, "A tip-off was received that some scammer gangs involved in operating call centres and cheating Indian and foreign nationals by impersonation technical support staff are operational in Guwahati. Based on the inputs, more than 200 police personnel formed teams and simultaneously conducted raids at eight different locations across the city."

Diganta Borah said, "The scammers would contact their targets over the phone claiming to be from a well-known organisation or they would use pop-ups on computers. to deceive individuals and cheat to create a sense of fear that the victim's bank account has been compromised, or their computer has a virus and that their personal information is at risk." The scammers would ask the victims to install software on their computers or phones and then access their bank accounts and steal their information, he added.

He further said, "We have detained 191 individuals and seized the electronic gadgets used for committing such cybercrime. We have arrested three masterminds. Two of the masterminds who managed to escape from Guwahati by road in a rented car were apprehended at a place near Bhabanipur with the help of Bajali district police."

"The arrested masterminds were identified as Debajyoti Dey alias David (31 years old) of Karimganj district of Assam, Rajan Sidana (39 years old) of Ludhiana, Punjab, and Divyam Arora (31 years old) of Delhi", he added.