Just off the Miyapur-Gachibowli main road in the western part of Hyderabad, an area where the who’s who of the tech city’s IT companies live, is a small lane. Drainwater runs down its middle, flowing past an unmarked six-storey apartment block. Here, 30 employees of Vertez Solutions lived in their first month at the company.
Among them were Prapti Sarkar from Howrah in West Bengal, Savitra Patro from Bhayander in Maharashtra, Karen Ovung from Dimapur in Nagaland, Bijay Thapa from Jorabat in Assam, and others who would get ferried to IT companies every evening, about 4 km away. On the morning of August 11, the new recruits were told by their managers to quickly pack up and vacate.
Voice over Internet Protocol-based crime
The previous day, on August 10, what the world believed was a set of IT companies were found to be part of an elaborate scam worth about $10,000 per day, as per the Cyberabad police. The smooth operation that used the Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) had been going on for two and a half years, they revealed.
Cyberabad Police Commissioner Stephen Raveendra explaining about the scam in which CPUs, laptops, monitors, routers, mobile phones and other equipment (in picture) were used. The telecallers were from Gujarat, Assam, Delhi, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal.
Sub Inspector R. Narasimha Rao of the Madhapur police, who led the raid, said that based on a tip-off from a reliable source, four teams were formed.
It had only been an hour into their regular work day at Vittal Rao Nagar, where they ran the con operation when about 20 cops landed on the premises at around 8.30 p.m. “The place was functioning like any other IT company, with employees busily making calls and others typing away at their desks when we reached. Upon seeing the men in khakis, the prime players in the scam, Pradeep Rathod and Deepak Ghosh, were in the process of escaping from their office. We chased and nabbed them before they could leave the floor,” said the official.
The Madhapur police nabbed a group of 115. Officials said that the main players in the scam were youngsters in their 20s who, as per preliminary probe, seem to have gained knowledge about the scam and how to operate cryptocurrency from the Internet.
Officials also said that they were paying the employees in cash and were making sure not to leave a digital trail in their operation.
The arrested people were identified as Mohammed Ansari Mohirfan (ARJ Solutions), Ghanchi Akib (AG Solutions), Pradeep Vinod Rathod (Vertez Solutions), Osman Ghani Khan (Vertez Solutions), floor leaders in Vertez Solutions Shivam Pradhan and Deepu Thapar, apart from 109 others working as ‘telemarketing executives’.
The company, Vertez Info Solutions, was being run in a 2,800-foot office located on the fifth floor of a building in the middle of the IT hub in Madhapur. It hired people from across the country, trained them in an American accent, and put them to work.
During the raids, the police recovered 115 CPUs, 7 laptops, 94 monitors, 4 routers, 120 mobile phones, an Audi car registered in Gujarat, and ₹2.55 lakh in cash. All the three companies are registered with the registrar of companies (ROC) in Gujarat. According to police, the 109 telecallers were from Gujarat, Assam, Delhi, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal.
Officials from the Madhapur Police said they submitted the hard drives and other electronic devices to the Forensics Science Laboratory to retrieve data. “Following the raid, delegates from the US embassy reached out to us, and we are making efforts to identify the victims of the scam. The data on their drives are regularly wiped, and it might take some time to get the list of the people who lost their money to this operation,” said the officials.
The case has now been transferred to Cyberabad’s Cyber Crimes Wing, which will access the contents of the laptops and other incriminating materials to piece together the operation.
Gift card bait
Explaining the scam, Police Commissioner of Cyberabad, Stephen Raveendra said that ‘employees’ were placing Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) calls to unsuspecting people in the U.S.
According to police officials, the IT employees would make calls to people in America and bait them into buying gift cards/vouchers on genuine websites. People at the helm of the operation would then cash it by round-tripping it into cryptocurrency, then to U.S. Dollars, and finally to Indian Rupees.
“They (scamsters) were collecting personal data of people from leads generating portals and placing VOIP calls. They would call the citizens living in the United States by posing as officials from the U.S. customs, or from the Border Protection Cell, or Homeland Security. They would create panic by stating that a parcel was found in their name containing suspicious substances”Stephen Raveendra Police Commissioner of Cyberabad
“They were collecting personal data of people from leads generating portals and placing VOIP calls. They would call the citizens living in the United States by posing as officials from the U.S. customs, or from the Border Protection Cell, or Homeland Security. They would create panic by stating that a parcel was found in their name containing suspicious substances,” said the official.
Apart from this, they would also make cold calls to the US and other international locations with an automated message asking if they had placed an order online. “When they select yes and press ‘1’, the telecaller gets on a call and tells them that they noticed a transaction and that their credit score is at risk,” the commissioner said.
“They would then convince people with lines like ‘Since your score and record is clean, we would like to believe you and ensure that this issue is cleared. Would you be able to provide/confirm your credentials?’. Most victims fall for this and hand over the details,” shared the police.
Eventually, they would convince their victims to buy gift cards and vouchers online, selling them at lower rates on Paxful.com, which is a peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading platform. “The buyers would send cryptocurrency, which the fraudsters converted into Stablecoin USDT via the crypto exchange TRUST. The vendors would then pay in cash through intermediaries at various locations like Ahmedabad. Notably, the fraudsters remain unaware of the intermediary’s identity until just prior to the transaction, ensuring the conversion of cryptocurrency into Indian Rupees (INR),” explained the official.
Madhapur police officials said that the men running the place sounded professional and made the whole operation look legitimate. “They would sound so professional on calls. They also trained people in U.S. laws and local slang,” said officials.
Leaving overnight
Gopal Kumar Singh, 23, from Giridih, Jharkhand, was the first in his family to get a job in an IT firm in Hyderabad. After receiving an offer with decent pay, including free accommodation, food, and a cab service, he was overjoyed to relocate. However, his happiness was short-lived as he was asked to pack up and leave overnight by his employers within 10 days of joining.
Now, the apartment complex where he and 29 others lived, wears a deserted look with garbage bags overflowing with liquor bottles, takeaway boxes, and paper plates and cups piled up in the entrance of the gate. The building is locked from the outside.
“They vacated the building overnight, and it was very odd,” said G. Ramulu, a resident of a neighbouring building. Ramulu flashed a wide smile when asked about the occupants. “They were a fun lot. All in their early 20s and partying during the day. We would often hear music from their rooms, and weekends would be a riot,” he says. He wonders what happened to them that they suddenly left.
The previous owner of the building, requesting anonymity, said that there were 30 rooms in the building and about 55-60 people were staying there by sharing the rooms. A cab would come and pick them up around 6:30 p.m. and drop them back around 4 a.m. Food was provided at the office.
“We used to get the rent on time from someone named Zubair, who claimed he was a cashier. We had no issues with the tenants. I sold the place in March 2023 and heard about the incident recently when the current owner called me asking about people suddenly vacating the place,” he said.
The promise of a job
““My job was to create an Excel sheet of information of U.S.-based customers, and I was being trained to gather these ‘leads’. I was later going to be trained to make cold calls and talk to ‘customers’ before transferring the calls to my seniors”Gopal Kumar SinghFormer call centre executive, Vertez Solutions
Gopal counts himself lucky to have had such a close shave with the law. “I will be careful while accepting a job in future. One of my friends referred me, and my family was really happy for me,” he said. Speaking about his role, he said, “My job was to create an Excel sheet of information of U.S.-based customers, and I was being trained to gather these ‘leads’. I was later going to be trained to make cold calls and talk to ‘customers’ before transferring the calls to my seniors.”
Another employee, Priyanka, 29, from Mumbai, Maharashtra, said that she worked for about three weeks until they shut shop after the raid. “I had applied through an online job portal and even looked up the company online,” she said. She was being trained for the job when suddenly a senior gave her ₹8,000 cash and asked her to leave the city. Now, she can find neither the company website nor any job listings related to it. The police suspect people from the ‘company’ who may still be operating, may have taken these down.
“I was so happy that I had my scooter shifted to the city. I liked Hyderabad and the rides across HiTec city,” she said. “I was in my room when I was told that the company was being shut down. After reaching Mumbai, I heard about the scam through my friends.”
Vandana Sharma, 45, from Mumbai, who was also being trained to generate leads by gathering information like Gopal, said that she did not find anything suspicious. “A cab would come pick us up on time, and the company was located on the fifth floor of a building amidst all the big MNCs in the Mindspace IT park. Around 15-20 people were freshly recruited along with me. I had to support my ailing mother and was in desperate need of a job when I landed this offer. Thought I would shift to Hyderabad and expand my search while being employed,” she said.
Meanwhile, Imran Khan, 33, a native of Mumbai, was told that the company was catering to customers of Amazon and that he would be trained to speak to people in the U.S. about their orders. “I was made to sit beside the senior employees to pay attention to the way they speak. This was called ‘budding’ in corporate slang. I was in my room with three others who I became friends with during my short tenure when one of us got a message to leave immediately,” he said.
Published - August 25, 2023 08:19 am IST
