CBI busts firms duping foreigners in guise of Microsoft & Amazon, Rs 100-cr crypto fraud in massive op

 As part of CBI’s week-long ‘Operation Chakra 2’, searches carried out in MP, UP, Karnataka, Haryana, Kerala, TN, Punjab, Bihar, West Bengal and HP, as well as Delhi.  

ANANYA BHARDWAJ, The Print, 19 October, 2023, New Delhi: The CBI has conducted a nationwide sweep at 72 locations in connection with two cases involving individuals who allegedly masqueraded as technical support representatives for tech giants Microsoft and Amazon to defraud foreign nationals, ThePrint has learnt.

Searches were also carried out in three other cases related to a “cryptocurrency fraud” involving companies having Chinese links, CBI sources said.

The searches were carried out in multiple states, including Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Haryana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Bihar, West Bengal and Himachal Pradesh, as well as Delhi. They were part of the CBI’s “Operation Chakra 2”, aimed to “combat and dismantle organised cyber-enabled financial crimes,” an officer in the agency said. 

The operation, the officer added, was conducted in collaboration with national and international agencies, including the US’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), alongside Microsoft and Amazon.

According to a CBI source, Microsoft conducted a year-long investigation in the initial two cases, which revealed nine India-based companies “impersonating the tech giant and deceiving foreign nationals from the UK and the US”. 

Microsoft’s inquiry, it is learnt, uncovered that six of these companies were also fraudulently using Amazon’s identity. The two tech giants subsequently collaborated to gather relevant data and jointly filed a formal complaint with the CBI, instigating a comprehensive investigation.

“These nine companies or call centres were big establishments with big operations that were also paying income tax,” the source said.

“These were being operated from India and were identified. Following the information from the tech giants, the searches were conducted,” the source added. 

These companies, the source said, have a very “well-oiled network” even in the UK and the US, from where they received the data of their potential targets.

“The companies based abroad provided data on foreign nationals to the companies in India and, from here, they carried out their operation,” the source added.

“They would call these nationals pretending to be from Amazon and Microsoft and provide tech support. Using malware, they would then corrupt their systems and take money to fix the bug. Many people were defrauded,” the source said.