Scam call centre owner in custody after BBC investigation

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A scam call centre that targeted thousands of British victims has been raided by the Indian police, following a BBC investigation.

Panorama broadcast hacked footage from inside the call centre which showed how staff charged people hundreds of pounds to fix non-existent computer problems.

The owner of the call centre, Amit Chauhan, denied it was a scam but declined to answer detailed questions.

Mr Chauhan is now in custody after police raided the call centre.

It was located in the Gurugram suburb of Delhi, and Mr Chauhan is due to appear in court on Thursday.

The programme had also obtained the recordings of 70,000 calls where victims were being ripped off in the UK, America and Australia.

Indian police are appealing for British residents who paid money to the call centre to contact them by email at Shocybergrg.pol-hry@gov.in.

• Watch on iPlayer: Spying on the Scammers

Perry Adams was one of those who lost money after a bogus warning appeared on his computer, saying it had been infected with pornographic spyware.

He said he will be contacting the Indian police with his evidence.

“I think that it’s superb the work that Panorama has done on behalf of the victims, to catch someone who thought they were untouchable. There’s nothing to stop him opening up somewhere else, so I’ll be interested to see what happens in court,” he said.

Hundreds of thousands of people are employed in legitimate call centres in India, but there are also dozens of call centres running scams.

Indian police say it is a difficult crime to prosecute because all of the victims are overseas, and they need evidence from victims in order to bring charges.

Panorama obtained its evidence from an online vigilante who goes by the name of Jim Browning. He had hacked into the call centre’s computer system and taken control of the CCTV cameras in the building.