US authorities have shut down an India-based call centre operation that allegedly defrauded hundreds of elderly Americans of millions of dollars through tech support scams, following a years-long investigation.
Delhi Police arrested over 600 individuals and detained over 8,300 suspects during Operation CyHawk 4.0, a major crackdown on cybercrime. The operation targeted financial networks and call centres involved in online scams, recovering significant digital evidence and tracing defrauded money.
Delhi Police arrested over 600 people and rounded up over 8,300 suspects during Operation CyHawk 4.0, a large-scale crackdown on cybercrime.
The victims were duped of of their retirement savings ranging between $ 1,180 and $ 174,300, the Department of Justice said on Monday.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (Trai's) latest push to review its existing spam regulations and expand the definition of "commercial communications" is driven by an urgent need to tighten controls on autodialers or robocallers, and bulk messaging, according to official sources. This move, they said, comes in response to a surge in complaints against unregistered telemarketers (UTMs), which soared to 750,000 in just the first half of 2024, underscoring the necessity for a comprehensive overhaul of the government's anti-spam measures. Last week, Trai released a consultation paper aimed at revisiting the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 (TCCCPR-2018), the government's legal framework against spam.
The telecom ministry will set up an intelligence unit and a consumer protection system as part of continuing efforts to tackle the menace of pesky calls as well as to take strict action against financial frauds perpetrated using telecom resources.
The National Informatics Centre uses AI to automate document analysis and detect fraud in government departments.
Launched in March, it triggers re-verification of suspected fraudulent numbers. Failing re-verification, the number will be disconnected.
An Indian national from Gurgaon has been sentenced to three years in federal imprisonment on charges of call centre fraud that intended to cheat Americans of millions of dollars, a US attorney said.
Telecom regulator Trai on Monday said that it is working on various technologies to detect pesky calls and messages along with a joint action plan with other regulators to curb financial frauds. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said that Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC) or pesky communication is a major source of inconvenience to the public and impinges on the privacy of individuals. "Now complaints are reported against Unregistered Telemarketers (UTMs), where a surge has been seen in pushing various kinds of UCC SMSes. Additionally, UCC calls are also one of the concerns which need to be dealt with equally along with UCC SMSes," it said.
Telecom service providers (TSPs) have begun to monitor and prevent spam calls since May 1, with the help of an artificial intelligence and machine language-based system acting on the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (Trai) latest directive on the matter, its officials told Business Standard. Touted as the first big technological measure against the growing menace of unsolicited commercial communications, all TSPs have confirmed to Trai that they have rolled out the AI/ML tool. The filter system works on the distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform used by TSPs, and is set to go for incremental updates, rules for which will soon be released, they added.
Sukanya Verma recaps all the action at this year's MAMI.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances