Cyberabad police bust fake SBI call centre racket operating from Delhi

Hyderabad: The Cyberabad cyber crime police busted an SBI call centre racket in Uttam Nagar, Delhi, and arrested 14 persons. They impersonated SBI employees and cheated people to the tune of crores of rupees. The gang was involved in 14 cases in the Cyberabad commissionerate and 195 cases all over India.

The police received a complaint from a person who had been cheated to the tune of Rs. 1.60 lakh. On 2 October, the complainant received a call from SBI's credit card department. The purpose of the call was to verify and issue new cards as old cards were going to expire soon. The caller asked for the man's credit card details and asked him to share the OTP for activation of the new credit cards. Later, the man received messages saying that Rs.1,03,832 had been debited from one of his credit cards and Rs. 60,780 from another.

The accused have been identified as Nikhil Madaan, Deepanshu Madan, Pinky Kumari, Rohit Mathur, Hitesh Chopra, Vikas, Sanjay Kumar, Parbhat Kumar Singh, Saksham Raj, Anuj Kumar, Sameer Mishra, Murshid Alam, Farman Hussain, and Gourav Bharara. Laptops, 30 mobile phones, router, a motorbike, and a four-wheeler were seized from the gang.

According to the police, the gang used to collect details of SBI credit card holders from agents. Nikhil had opened a call center in Uttam Nagar, Delhi. They used apps like MoSIP, Silver Dialer, Round2Hell, and iTell Mobile Dialer to contact SBI credit card holders and impersonate SBI employees by showing the original customer care number.

Then they collected card details and OTPs by misguiding the customers in the name of card activation or deactivation of insurance or enhancing the credit card limit. After collecting the OTPs, they made transactions in house rental sites Housing.com and Noboker.com.

The Cyberabad police team tracked down the office that was running the call center with spoof call apps and apprehended 10 persons. Later, based on additional information, they apprehended the two other accused from UP and Bihar. They had developed ProspokeHD and Round2Hell websites used to make the calls.

The gang leader along with his associate who was absconding was apprehended from Delhi. During interrogation, it was revealed that the main conman had been providing the spoofing applications to the main gang leader of the RBL fake call center that was busted recently.

The police have issued advisory warning citizens against calls claiming to be from SBI or any other bank. People are advised against sharing OTP and their card details with anyone. They should change the PIN number soon after receiving the new credit/debit card and they should go through the instructions provided by bankers to claim the reward points, to enhance their credit limit or claim insurance and follow them to avoid being defrauded.