- CBI and Microsoft dismantled two India-based call centers involved in a cross-border technical support scam targeting Japanese citizens.
- Authorities arrested six people after coordinated searches across 19 sites in India, confiscating computers, phones, and digital storage devices.
- Scammers posed as technical support staff from companies like Microsoft, deceiving victims into transferring funds to fraudulent accounts.
- Operations used social engineering and AI tools to scale activity, including automation and language translation to attack Japanese users.
- The crackdown followed international cooperation, including with the Japan National Police Agency and Japan Cybercrime Control Center (JC3), and ties to unrelated cyber incidents were also reported.
India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested six individuals and shut down two illegal call centers on May 28, 2025. The call centers reportedly operated in Delhi, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh. This was part of Operation Chakra V, an effort to stop international financial cybercrime.
The CBI said the suspects ran a “sophisticated” tech support scam, targeting mainly Japanese nationals. They pretended to be technical support staff from major companies like Microsoft and tricked victims into believing their devices were compromised. According to the agency, “Under this pretext, victims were coerced into transferring funds into mule accounts.” Officers searched 19 locations, seized computers and devices, and gathered evidence.
Authorities worked with the Japan National Police Agency and Microsoft, who helped map the network’s structure. Cooperation with the Japan Cybercrime Control Center (JC3) also contributed to identifying illicit operations. Microsoft’s Steven Masada stated, “With the growth of cybercrime-as-a-service, connectivity among cybercriminals has increased and become more global. We must continue to look at the full ecosystem in which these actors operate and coordinate with multiple international partners to meaningfully address cybercrime.”
Officials found the call centers used advanced social engineering—psychological tricks that manipulate people—along with technical subterfuge to find victims and extract payments. Microsoft said it has helped dismantle about 66,000 fake web domains worldwide since May 2024. The involved network had roles such as pop-up creators, search engine optimizers, and payment processors. The operators used generative AI, which can automatically create digital content, to make malicious pop-up alerts, identify targets, and translate messages into Japanese.
Recently, unrelated incidents involving Indian customer support links were highlighted. Coinbase ended a contract with a supplier after reports of a data breach tied to India-based representatives, as covered by Reuters. Separately, INTERPOL reported arrests across 12 countries between March and May 2025 in a crackdown on child sexual abuse material, but these cases were not linked to the CBI operation.
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