The Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of the Special Cell of Delhi Police said on Sunday that they have busted an entire fraudulent operational setup aimed to extort money from elderly citizens of the US by playing upon fear of hackers.

The accused, identified as Suman Das, Subrat Das, Kunal Singh Gautam, and Amit, were arrested by the police. They are all experts in online cyber fraud.

“Perpetrators approached them on the pretext of online technical support and then engaged them in their skillfully scripted trap of fear, lies, and false promises, which cost the victims their hard-earned 625,000 USD,” said H. G. S. Dhaliwal, the Special Commissioner of Police.

The official said that one Jose Antonio Cordero and Laniwati Tanudjaja of the US made a complaint with IFSO through the US Embassy in India, alleging that they had sought online help from the famous tech support website Geek Squad to resolve problems with their laptop on October 21, 2021.

“On the same day, they received a call from a person introducing himself as John from Geek Squad. He told them that their laptop had been hacked and all their information, including financial data, had been revealed to the hackers. He claimed that their life savings might be stolen by hackers unless funds were immediately transferred to safe accounts. The fraudster John connected the victims to his colleague Austin, introducing him as a technical expert. Both of them convinced the victims to transfer their savings to different overseas accounts to protect it from hackers,” said the official.

Under close online guidance, victim Jose Antonio transferred his and his friend Laniwati’s funds to various overseas accounts provided by the fraudsters through wire transfers and gift cards in order to save them from the so-called hackers.

To maintain the trust of the victims, another person named Christopher was introduced as a Senior Level Officer in Geek Squad. He patiently listened to the grievances of the victims and promised to help them. After some days, Christopher informed the victims that he had initiated the process to return their money. To support his claim, he sent copies of some forged cheques purported to be issued in favour of the victims. He also convinced them that in order to prevent future hacker attacks on their infected devices, they should buy new laptops, mobile phones, and routers with special software that would make these devices hack-proof.

“The accused got two Macbook Pro laptops and four expensive Samsung mobile phones delivered to Mehrauli, New Delhi, under the impression that they enjoy complete impunity for cybercrime committed overseas. After exhausting all the savings and even maxing out the credit cards of victim Jose Antonio, all three shared the cheated amount among them to live a lavish lifestyle,” the police said.

The police examined the complainants through video conferencing and learned that the accused were based in India and were defrauding US citizens. Their true identities were revealed. Accordingly, three distinct teams were formed under the guidance of Prashant Gautam, DCP/IFSO, to apprehend the accused.

“Kunal Singh was arrested in Mehrauli. Subrat Das was arrested in Odisha. Suman Das was apprehended in Kolkata. During their police remand, all three accused were confronted with each other, and they revealed that they received around 40-50 per cent of the total cheated amount. Other stakeholders, such as US bank account providers, blockers (who convert cheated money to cash), and call providers (who arrange these fake calls with gullible customers), also take their share, apart from other expenses,” said the police.

It was also revealed that the majority of the cheated amount was spent on betting and living a lavish lifestyle. The accused further divulged that one Gautam from Delhi was their “blocker” who had redeemed all their gift cards through the hawala network. Gautam was also arrested. He disclosed that he worked for one Amit from Rohini. Subsequently, Amit was also arrested.

“Interrogation has revealed that this is a big hawala racket with nodes in the US, China, and other countries. It has also been revealed that generally, all fraudulently obtained money and gift cards are redeemed in China at heavily discounted prices. Cryptocurrency is another medium used to move the proceeds of crime across the border and accumulate funds. Another revealing angle is that a large chunk of the cheated amount is being spent on online betting by the criminals, and the cash generated through online betting is circulated back in the hawala network,” the police said.

The police stated that the accused run online campaigns with Google ads, showing false toll-free numbers to trap victims.