An Indian phone fraud ring active around the world has been exposed thanks to information from Austria in which damages amounted to 2.7 million euros, the criminal brigade said on Thursday.
Criminals impersonate Interpol or Europol agents and claim by telephone to their interlocutors that their identity card numbers have been stolen to commit crimes, according to a press release sent to AFP.
They then ask them to, for example, secure their money by emptying their bank account by buying a Google Play card, then giving them the card number, before disappearing.
Following the complaint, Austrian investigators in August provided their Indian counterpart with information via Interpol that led to the location of a fake call center in September in New Delhi, as well as the arrests of three heads of the network.
According to the crime brigade, reports of this type of offense – a hundred per week at the highest end of July – have stopped altogether since then. “Therefore it can be assumed that this call center itself is behind all the crimes that fall into this category” in Austria, the brigade estimated. Fraud, “carried out worldwide”, causing “damage in Austria alone about 2.7 million euros”said the police.
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