Amazon Prime international fake subscription call center raided, 13 arrested

Hyderabad: Thirteen people arrested for operating an international fake Amazon Prime subscription call center.

Cyberabad Police busted the racket and arrested them.

Cheating method

The accused persons allegedly cheated people based in Australia and Canada by posing as tech support team staff of Amazon Prime.

According to the police, the sleuths of the Special Operations Team (SOT), Medchal Zone, busted the call centre located in Petbasheerbad PS limits. The accused persons used illegal techniques and Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) calls to contact potential targets in Australia and offered technical support by telling the victims that their Amazon Prime account was hacked or had a security threat.

Payment through gift cards

The victims were then made to pay the specified amount through gift cards, which were redeemed at AUS-based bank accounts by the overseas contacts of the accused.

Call center for fraud

A total of 13 persons were present at the call centre who indulged in this activity.

They were arrested, and the police recovered several items from the scene, including 13 desktop monitors, 14 CPUs, 13 headsets, one hard disk, one pen drive, one memory card, eight new SIM cards, 18 mobile phones, two diesel make wristwatches, one Hill Finger wristwatch, one Fortuner car (TN-11/J-3232), net cash of ₹ 5,940, internet routers, telecommunication software, and incriminating data in the computers and mobile phones, among other materials.

The arrests were made under the supervision of G. Sundeep, Dy. Commissioner of Police, Medchal Zone, M.A. Rasheed, Dy. Commissioner of Police, SOT Cyberabad, and P. Shobhan Kumar, Addl. DCP of SOT Medchal Zone, Cyberabad. The Cyberabad Police urged citizens to be aware of such fraudulent calls and to avoid sharing personal information or paying any amount to unknown callers.