Global Scam Ring SHUT DOWN: CBI Nabs Tech Support Fraudsters

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) of India has announced the dismantling of a transnational cybercriminal syndicate responsible for large-scale tech support scams. The operation, codenamed Chakra V, was carried out on July 7, 2025, as part of an international investigation targeting a network that defrauded citizens in the United Kingdom and Australia.

According to the agency, one of the core nodes in the fraud infrastructure was located in Noida’s Special Economic Zone, where authorities uncovered and shut down a fully operational fraudulent call center named FirstIdea. The center employed advanced call-routing technologies, malicious scripts, and VoIP infrastructure, enabling it to mask the origin of calls and launch mass-scale scams targeting victims outside India. Two individuals were arrested during the raids, including one of the network’s principal operators.

Investigators noted that the operation was meticulously timed to align with the time zones of the targeted countries, allowing them to catch the scammers red-handed during live calls. CBI revealed that the fraudsters posed as representatives from major IT companies, including Microsoft, falsely claiming that victims’ devices had been compromised and coercing them into purchasing unnecessary services to fix fictitious threats.

The financial impact of the group’s activities in the UK alone has already surpassed £390,000—approximately $525,000. According to the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), over one hundred individuals were deceived into paying for “repairs” after encountering fake pop-up warnings about malware infections. Exploiting Microsoft’s trusted name, the perpetrators extracted payments for fake updates and bogus fixes.

The investigation spanned approximately 18 months and was the result of collaborative efforts between the CBI, NCA, FBI, and Microsoft. This international partnership enabled authorities to not only unravel the architecture of the criminal network but also trace the IT servers used to route the fraudulent calls. The ringleaders employed caller ID spoofing and routed communications through multiple countries to obscure their origins.

In a related development, Nikkei Asia reports that despite enforcement efforts elsewhere, the number of centers involved in cryptocurrency scams continues to rise in eastern Myanmar. Since the beginning of the year, authorities have identified 16 suspicious sites, with eight more currently under construction, despite previous crackdowns.

The scale and technical sophistication of such operations underscore the growing threat posed by transnational cybercrime networks—entities capable of operating globally while exploiting public trust in well-known brands and digital platforms.