Panaji: Goa cyber crime police busted a fake call centre at a villa in Bambolim that was allegedly duping US citizens by impersonating Apple Support Centre personnel. Ten accused persons, including a 32-year-old resident of Chicalim, were arrested in connection with the case on Monday.
The Cyber Crime Police Station, Ribandar, received information from reliable sources about online illegal activities being carried out at a villa in Aldeia de Goa, Bambolim. After verifying the information, police conducted a raid.
Police said victims were presented with fraudulent pop-up messages falsely claiming that their iOS/iCloud accounts or Apple devices had been compromised or infected. The victims were thereafter allegedly induced to make payments for purported technical support services through gift cards, Zelle, PayPal and USDT.
“The accused were allegedly impersonating Apple Support Centre personnel and operating through laptops, mobile phones, VoIP services and spoofed US telephone numbers,” said a police officer, adding, “Victims were presented with fraudulent pop-up messages falsely claiming that their iOS/iCloud accounts or Apple devices had been compromised or infected.”
The arrested accused are Kunal Shah (41), Abhijeet Parmar (25) and Brijesh Telaiya (28), natives of Gujarat; Devarsh Srivastava (21) and Dhruv Dwivedi (29), natives of UP; Raj D Sangma (27), Sofyean Laloo (19) and Ravi Thapa (27), natives of Meghalaya; Shreyash Ludbe (25), a native of Mumbai, Maharashtra; and Jude Pereira (32) from Chicalim.
Police seized nine laptops, nine cellphones, one router and several headsets. The arrested accused persons were produced before the court for police custody, police said.
