Cyber fraudsters are taking a new route to work with their associates in foreign countries and simultaneously hide money trails: Cryptocurrency. Amid a debate around the legality of the digital currency and calls for regulation, officers in the Delhi Police’s Cyber Crime Unit are finding cryptocurrency fast becoming a means for illegal transactions, posing myriad challenges for investigating agencies.
According to senior police officers, scamsters dealing in cryptocurrency have three modus operandi — running fake call centres, using Chinese apps to defraud people, and gift card scams.
In July, police busted one such fake call centre when they caught four men from Rajasthan’s Chittorgarh, who allegedly cheated people on the pretext of giving them loans and converted that money into cryptocurrency. Police said the accused were inspired by a YouTube video and approached a Chinese national on Telegram, who was also involved in online loan cheating, to learn how to dupe people. They then approached people with an online loan offer and got them to deposit anything between Rs 40,000 and Rs 1 lakh. DCP (Rohini) Pranav Tayal’s team found the gang members using a BMW car, which was bought with that money, and that one of the accused is involved in a Rs 1-crore cheating case.
In the last year alone, the IFSO unit arrested 87 people in fake call centre cases. Senior officers at the Cyber Crime Unit said that in a majority of such call centres, the accused dealt in…
