‘Geek Squad’: 5 men arrested for cheating US citizens of $625,000
New Delhi: The Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of Delhi Police Special Cell on Sunday arrested five men from different locations in India for cheating US citizens.
“Perpetrators approached them on the pretext of online technical support and then engaged them in their skillfully scripted trap of fear, lies, and false promises, which cost the victims their hard-earned $625,000,” said HGS Dhaliwal, Special Commissioner of Police.
The official said that one Jose Antonio Cordero and Laniwati Tanudjaja of the US made a complaint with IFSO through the US Embassy in India, alleging that they had sought online help from the famous tech support website Geek Squad to resolve problems with their laptop on October 21, 2021.
“On the same day, they received a call from a person introducing himself as John from Geek Squad and he told them that their laptop had been hacked and all their information, including financial data, had been revealed to the hackers. He claimed that their lifetime savings might be stolen by hackers if funds are not saved immediately by transferring to some safe accounts. The fraudster John connected the victims to his colleague Austin, introducing him as a technical expert and both of them convinced the victims to transfer their savings to different overseas accounts to protect it from hackers,” said the official.
Under close online guidance, victim Jose Antonio transferred his and his friend Laniwati’s funds to various overseas accounts provided by the fraudsters through wire transfers and gift cards in order to save them from the so-called hackers.
In order to maintain the trust of the victims, another person named Christopher was introduced as a Senior Level Officer in Geek Squad who gave patient and sympathetic hearing to the grievances of the victims and promised to help them. After some days, Christopher informed the victims that he had initiated the process to return their money.
To support his claim, he sent copies of some forged cheques purported to be issued in favour of the victims.
He also convinced them that in order to prevent future hacker attacks on their infected devices, they should buy new laptops, mobile phones, and routers with special software that would make these devices hack-proof.
“The accused got two Macbook Pro laptops and four expensive Samsung mobile phones delivered to Mehrauli, New Delhi, under the impression that they enjoy complete impunity for cybercrime committed overseas.
After exhausting all the savings and even maxing out the credit cards of victim Jose Antonio, all three shared the cheated amount among them to live a lavish lifestyle,” the police said.
The police examined the complainants through video conferencing and learned that the accused were based in India and were defrauding US citizens.
“Kunal Singh was arrested in Mehrauli. Subrat Das was arrested in Odisha. Suman Das was apprehended in Kolkata. During their police remand, all three accused were confronted with each other, and they revealed that they received around 40-50 per cent of the total cheated amount.
Other stakeholders, such as US bank account providers, blockers (who convert cheated money to cash), and call providers (who arrange these fake calls with gullible customers), also take their share, apart from other expenses,” said the police.
During the course of investigation, Gautam was arrested and he disclosed that he works for one Amit from Rohini, Delhi. Thereafter, Amit was also arrested.
