FBI, Delhi Police bust call center scam which defrauded US citizens of $20M

A group of call center fraudsters operating out of India were apprehended in a joint investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Interpol, and Delhi Police.

According to Delhi Police, the gang pretended to be a senior member of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in order to scam US citizens out of $20 million. Six people were detained by the squad. One is in Canada, one is in Uganda, and four are in India.

Vatsal Mehta, Parth Armarkar, Deepak Arora, and Prashant Kumar are the people who have been detained. Mehta is thought to have been the scheme's mastermind, and Armarkar was in charge of the scam's call centres in India and Uganda. The gang would contact potential victims under the guise of senior DEA agent Uttam Dhillon. 

Their typical scam technique involved telling the targets that child pornographic material had been seized at the US-Mexico border while claiming that their contact information had been discovered during the investigation. 

The victims were duped into paying a fine in order to avoid serious legal repercussions.

Targets were carefully chosen by the gang, which mainly chose wealthy people who were unlikely to report the scam to law enforcement. 

Even a quick internet search would reveal a real Uttam Dhillon serving as a DEA administrator, giving their impersonation more validity. 

The gang did extensive research and selected its victims based on characteristics like wealth, a lack of technical know-how, and loneliness.

The FBI has spoken with about 50 victims, and $20 million has allegedly been stolen as a result of this scam. 

In contrast to smaller frauds involving a few hundred dollars, the victims of this scheme were given more than $100,000 each. The gang carefully characterized their targets, searching through their social media accounts and taking advantage of weaknesses like a lack of technical knowledge or a sense of loneliness.