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(Photo: Klawe Rzeczy)
Bangkok Dangerous-sounding calls caused unrest across Germany last year: “Hello, this is Interpol” can be heard on the recorded announcement in English that criminals played to their victims. “Your identity is being used for fraudulent purposes. For more information, please press one.” Anyone who followed the request set a fraud machine in motion that, in the worst case, could become very expensive.
At the other end of the phone line, alleged police officers, who posed as either Europol, Interpol or federal police officers, asked the person called to empty their account in order to allegedly bring the money to safety, for example in the form of bitcoins.
In fact, they unknowingly sent it to the perpetrators. In Germany alone, several cases have been documented in which tricked people have lost tens of thousands of euros.
It is now clear who is behind the scam: According to investigators, a call center in the Indian capital New Delhi, from which worldwide telephone fraud was committed, is responsible – at least for some of the cases. This was announced in mid-November by the Federal Criminal Police Office in Austria – a country that was also targeted by the criminals.
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Together with the police authority Interpol and Indian colleagues, the Austrian investigators managed to smash the large-scale fraud operation of the “fake police officers”. Two alleged backers were arrested in India.
The self-praise of the investigators has a taste
Cyber-based fraud has increased drastically since the beginning of the corona pandemic, said Interpol Secretary General Jürgen Stock on the occasion of the case. The criminals have looted hard-earned savings and targeted the most vulnerable sections of society, he added. “The extraordinary police cooperation between Austria and India in this case shows that no criminal is beyond the reach of Interpol’s global network.”
>> Also read: Identity fraud at banks – The big business with the fake self
The self-praise of the investigators has a taste, however: Because the basis for the success against the fraudsters was not tedious police work, but the expertise of self-appointed fraud hunters.
The British IT expert Jim Browning, who documents his private investigations into the online fraud industry on a YouTube channel with four million subscribers, managed to hack into the Indian call center and pinpoint its exact location in the Indian capital.
He was able to understand how the scammers specifically targeted German and Austrian citizens. Browning sent his findings to the authorities in Vienna, making the transnational police operation possible.
Scam from India
85
percent
The so-called tech support scams were traced back to scammers in India by security researchers in 2017.
Without Browning and his cronies, the scammers would likely still be at work: international law enforcement all too rarely find a starting point to crack down on the massive online fraud networks that have spread across India.
The country with a population of 1.4 billion has been one of the world market leaders in Internet fraud for years. As early as 2017, security researchers attributed 85 percent of so-called tech support scams to scammers in India.
Among other things, Internet users are led to believe that they have caught a virus on their hardware. The supposed helpers promise a solution in exchange for a payment.
Indian authorities often see no way to stop the scammers
The method is particularly aimed at Americans. The American federal police, the FBI, estimates that more than ten billion dollars were stolen last year with these and similar Internet fraud schemes – around 50 percent more than in the previous year.
A large proportion of the perpetrators are believed to be in India, where fraudulent call centers mingle with the multitude of reputable outsourcing companies that handle customer service for foreign corporations.
Cyber-based fraud has increased drastically since the beginning of the corona pandemic, said Interpol Secretary General Jürgen Stock
(Photo: dpa)
Successful investigations against them are rare – Indian authorities often see no way of doing things because it is difficult to connect the perpetrators with concrete cases of fraud abroad. If fraudsters are caught, then the proportions are usually enormous.
Shortly before Christmas, authorities in the United States, Canada and India arrested five people who, according to the indictment, allegedly used Indian call centers to steal at least $10 million from more than 20,000 victims. The alleged perpetrators are said to have operated their scam unhindered for over a decade.
The FBI now wants to take action against the booming business of cybercriminals with an officer specially assigned to combat the fraud industry in India.
German prosecutors would also be well advised to work more closely with their Indian colleagues in future to drain the swamp of fraud. The cross-border cases can only be solved with international cooperation – and with technical expertise. The international investigators can also learn something from Youtubers.
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