IFSO unit of Delhi Police has busted an international cyber syndicate. symbolic picture
Jagran correspondent, New Delhi. IFSO unit of Delhi Police has busted an international cyber syndicate in a major action against cyber crime. The links of this gang have been found to be connected to China, Nepal, Cambodia, Taiwan and Pakistan. Seven accused, including a Taiwanese national, have been arrested in this case.
The gang used SIM boxes used for telemarketing to divert calls and commit cyber fraud with 20,000 phone numbers. More than a thousand complaints have been filed against this gang across the country, and preliminary investigation has revealed cyber fraud worth more than Rs 100 crore.
The fraudsters would falsely accuse victims of involvement in terrorist attacks like the Pahalgam and Delhi bomb blasts, and then digitally “arrest” them and force them to transfer money. 22 SIM boxes, eight mobile phones, three laptops, seven CCTV cameras, five routers, three passports, 10 Indian SIM cards and 120 Chinese SIM cards have been recovered from them.
According to Vineet Kumar, deputy commissioner of Delhi Police's Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit, since September last year, complaints were being received from victims across the country that fraudsters were calling as UP ATS officers.
The IFSO unit began investigating these complaints in October. Technical analysis revealed that the accused were deliberately routing the calls through 2G networks to avoid location tracking. The SIM box system was being used to make foreign calls appear to be Indian local numbers. These calls were mainly coming from Cambodia. Investigation also revealed that the IMEI numbers in the SIM boxes of Quectel company were being overwritten and rotated, due to which the same number was seen active from different cities.
Pakistani handlers played a role in funding, IMEI manipulation and de-identification techniques, while Nepal emerged as the main coordination center for the entire network from where instructions were being given to Indian ground operators. According to police, SIM boxes were installed at five places in Delhi. A special team formed under the supervision of ACP Vijay Gehlawat traced the first SIM box location in Goyal Dairy area of Delhi.
After a month of monitoring, the operation was carried out in Goyal Dairy, Qutub Vihar, Dinpur and Shahbad Dairy. During this operation, Shashi Prasad from Qutub Vihar and Goyal Dairy and Parvinder Singh from Dinpur were arrested; He was the local operator of SIM box in Delhi.
Further investigation revealed the role of Taiwanese national I-Tsung Chen, who was responsible for the supply, installation and technical configuration of the SIM box devices. The team adopted a counter-intelligence strategy, continued encrypted chats with him, and arrested him at the Delhi airport on 21 December.
Interrogation revealed that he was linked to a large organized crime network in Taiwan, headed by a man named Shang-Min Wu. I-Tsung Chen told that he had also installed a SIM box in Mohali, Punjab. The team raided Mohali and arrested Sarabdeep Singh and Jaspreet Kaur.
Sarabdeep has done B.Tech in Electronics, and Jaspreet is a diploma holder. SIM boxes, laptops, passports and Cambodian employment cards were recovered from them. The investigation revealed that Cambodia was used as a training and recruitment center, where operators were placed in organized scam centers.
Recruited by a Pakistani handler
Both the accused confessed during interrogation that they had worked in the scam centers of the syndicate operating in Cambodia. There, a Pakistani handler recruited him into the syndicate. On his instructions, the accused returned to India and set up an illegal SIM box hub in Mohali, through which fraudulent calls from abroad were routed to the Indian network.
Network extends to Coimbatore and Mumbai
After the Mohali setup, investigation revealed that the cyber criminals were preparing to set up a new SIM box setup in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. The suspect, identified as Dinesh Kumar, was apprehended.
During interrogation, Dinesh revealed that he had traveled extensively to Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia. These trips were made to directly coordinate with cryptocurrency exchanges, facilitators and major financial operators of the syndicate to launder huge amounts of fraudulent funds.
Based on his information, a raid was conducted in Malad, Mumbai, leading to the arrest of Abdussalam, a diploma holder in civil engineering. A SIM box setup was recovered from him.