Cyber fraud: 16 held for duping people in US and Europe

KOLKATA: Police arrested 16 people from the city's Topsia and neighbouring Salt Lake City for allegedly duping several people in different locations in the USA and Europe impersonating as executives of Google and Microsoft, an officer said on Wednesday.

Following complaints of several people in the US losing money from their bank accounts, Kolkata Police detectives conducted raids at places in the city on Tuesday and arrested 16 people, mostly in their early 20s for their alleged involvement in the crime, he said.

"These people were calling foreign nationals mostly in the US impersonating as executives working with Google or Microsoft or as technical experts offering help to solve issues in their laptops or desktops. These accused people were using phones and computers to commit the crime," the officer said."While offering help, the accused people used to take control of the computers of the victims and got hold of the details of the bank accounts and eventually transferred money to another account controlled by them," he said.Police have seized 4 laptops, 26 mobile phones, 8 computers and at least five hard disk drives, the police officer said.