New Delhi, Feb 17 (IANS): The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday conducted raids at four locations in connection with its investigation into a case related to fake call centres (in the national capital region) allegedly defrauding US citizens.

Following the raids, the probe agency seized foreign and Indian currencies over Rs 3 crore in cash.

"During the search, a fake tech support call centre was spotted where the accused and other person were allegedly involved in online cheating of US citizens, impersonating the tech support executives. They were allegedly receiving leads from their source and on these leads they would call potential targets in the US via Textnow application and take control of their systems using remote access software like Any Desk on the pretext of solving issues," a CBI official said.

The official said that the recoveries include foreign and Indian currencies over Rs 3 crore, 15 mobile phones, seven laptops, incriminating documents, and chats containing details of the fraud and scripts for talking to US citizens.

"The accused would then guide the targets to buy a gift card for installing or upgrading the security software (which was never actually done) and take the card number from them. The gift card numbers taken from the targets were sent to an exclusive Telegram group for cash redemption through the Hawala channel," the CBI said.

A case in this matter was registered on June 10, 2022, against four accused and others on the allegations that the accused had fraudulently gained remote access to the digital resources of unsuspecting victims of the US and transferred the crypto-currencies from the accounts of the victims to their wallets.