Bengaluru Police Bust Fake BPO Running 'Digital Arrest' Scam Targeting US & Canada Citizens

Bengaluru: The Bengaluru city police have busted a `digital arrest' scam run through a call center, targeting US and Canada citizens and arrested 16 employees, including two women.

The fake BPO company was operating from HSR layout and the accused used to reportedly put their victims under `digital arrest' for their extortion activities. However, the kingpin of the racket is still at large.

On October 7, the HSR layout police had received information about a fake BPO company called `Cybits Solutions Pvt Ltd.,' which had hired around 20-25 employees through an online process. The company was operating for the last two years and the police had vague reports on the company. During the raid, it was revealed that the company was into `digital arrest' scam.

While most of the arrested were from Meghalaya, the others belonged to states like Odhisha, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Gujrat. ``These employees were made to call US and Canada citizens through internet phones, falsely claiming that they were representing various law enforcement agencies like American Border Force, American Postal Service Department, American Customs and Border Protection Force and threaten their victims that narcotic substances were found in the packages sent by them or money laundering was found in their name. After scaring their callers, these employees, in pretext of helping them out, used to extort money from them and get money transferred to their account.

Though the callers were either class 10 or class 12 pass, they were trained in spoken English with an American accent. In three weeks, these employees will be ready for work. The employees used to get ₹ 20,000 to ₹ 25,000 per month, they used to earn commission to the tune of anywhere between ₹ 2 lakh to ₹ 4 lakh per month.

Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Seemanth Kumar Singh said that the city police were seeking help from the FBI to track down the victims of these scamsters. The BPO, which is operational for over two and a half years, is estimated to have extorted anywhere between ₹ 150 crore to ₹ 200 crore, he added.