Fifty-two people have been arrested from Guwahati since Friday in a sustained crackdown launched by the city police since Thursday night on call centres/customer service centres allegedly duping the gullible for over two years.

The arrests were made following raids at eight places in Assam’s capital on Thursday night and Friday. Initially, the police had arrested the three masterminds and detained 191 persons, including 47 women.

Guwahati police commissioner Diganta Barah said on Saturday that the detained people not arrested have been released but will have to appear whenever required in connection with the investigation of the Cyber Police Station Case No.08/2023.

The employees detained/arrested during the raids were found to be from states such as Punjab, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura.

The arrested have been booked under multiple IPC sections such as 120(B)/419/420/385/467/468/471/507 IPC read with Sections 65/66/66(B)/66(C)/66(D) of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

The police first started working on leads on scammer gangs operating from Guwahati. These gangs were involved in operating call centres across India and are scamming and cheating gullible Indians and foreign nationals by “impersonating” as tech support staff and “legitimate” customer service representatives.

The alleged scammers “deceive” and cheat individuals of their money or personal information “by making various false claims to create a sense of urgency or fear” about their bank accounts getting compromised, their computer getting infected by a virus, their personal identifiable information being at risk or their computer or social media account being hacked, the police said.

The investigation has revealed that scammers chose “innocuous” looking buildings to establish such scam call centres to avoid the attention of public and law enforcement agencies.

“They ensure not a single ray of light is visible inside the building from outside to avoid any suspicion. A lease line connection is taken from different Internet service providers in some fake names to establish 400/500 lines exchange for making or receiving Internet calls (VoIP).

“They recruit gullible educated and unemployed youths (both men and women) in the name of providing employment in call centres and engage them in scamming operations,” the police said.

Two of the raided call centres are located in the Bamunimaidam area while one each at VIP Road, Zoo Tiniali, Rajgarh Road, ABC Point, Christian Basti and Zoo Road in the city. The police seized desktops (164), laptops (90), mobile phones (26) among others during the raids.

The names of the alleged masterminds are Debajyoti Dey, 31, Karimganj district in Assam, Rajan Sidana, 39, from Ludhiana in Punjab and Divyam Arora, 31, Delhi.

Barah said what they have unearthed till now is only the tip of the iceberg.

Though the number of people duped or the extent of the scam was not revealed, the police said the monthly turnover of an average call centre runs into several crores.

“Monetary transactions from the victims are mostly in the form of Bitcoins or in the form of gift vouchers. All these Bitcoins and gift vouchers are encashed/redeemed in Indian rupees with the help of international hawala gangs...Hard cash comes from outside the state for running these call centres in Guwahati and also to make payment to the employees through hawala channels.”

“All these scam call centres are in a way running an illegal internet-based telephone exchange for making International calls which is a cause of concern for national security,” the police said.

This gang of scammers initiate contact through “unsolicited” phone calls, claiming to be from a well-known company or organisation, such as a bank, tech support, government agency or even a popular online service provider.

They ask the victims to install remote desktop software and thereby take access to the victim’s personal computers and thereafter steal personal information by planting malwares on the targeted victim’s devices, the police said.

“These scammers also open fake toll-free numbers (TFNs) where if dialled by anyone the calls will be landing at the call centres run by these scammers. Upon receiving such calls, the trained call receivers engage the caller in such a way by going through a prepared transcript of such conversations, resulting in forcing the gullible victims to part away with their hard-earned money or personal information,” the police said.