Srinagar, Jan 13 (IANS): A racket in fake call centres has been busted in Jammu and Kashmir and 23 accused arrested for duping gullible people, mostly in foreign countries, on the pretext of technical support and solutions to software problems, police said on Wednesday.

Police said the Cybercrime Prevention Wing had arrested the 23 persons who operated through bogus international call centres to con innocent people.

These scamsters mostly cheated people staying in foreign countries by posing as technical support executives, insurance agents, law-enforcement officers, bank officials, executives of online shopping sites etc.

The Cyber Police Station, Kashmir Zone, Srinagar, took up the matter for investigation after information through reliable sources that some fake call centres are running in the Kashmir Valley.

"These fake call centre executives made cold calls, sent emails, pop-ups on computer screens of intended victims, and then gained remote access to their computers and infect these with malware, thus starting the process of cheating them out of money on the pretext of technical support.

"They also misused electronic signatures of the victims for illegal financial gains. These accused also demanded the financial and bank details of their victims to make illegal gains for themselves."

Police said that several teams in association with Srinagar district police conducted multiple raids in Rangreth, Karfali Mohalla, Habbakadal, and Natipora areas of Srinagar and arrested these accused.

The fake call centres were running under the names and addresses of 'Secure Tech, Rangreth, Srinagar', 'YSS Micro Technologies, Rangreth' and 'Vertex Technology, Karfalli Mohalla, Srinagar'.

Police said that such fake call centres were earlier limited to big cities only, but had since mushroomed across the country. A major concern was that young students were getting sucked into such crime due to lure of attractive salary packages.