Breaking: India Busts a Call Centre That Scammed Americans, 119 Arrested in Lucknow

Above: Lucknow Police present some of the 119 arrested accused at a press conference announcing the bust, standing behind senior officers led by the Police Commissioner, in front of the “Lucknow Police” backdrop. The accused are under investigation and presumed innocent unless proven guilty. Photo: Lucknow Police official press handout.

Breaking: In one of the largest cybercrime busts in India this year, the Lucknow Commissionerate Police have dismantled an international fraud call centre that was preying on citizens of the United States, arresting 119 people in a single coordinated raid. The operation, run from the 11th floor of the Summit Building in Vibhuti Khand, posed as Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, the FBI and the US Federal Trade Commission to frighten Americans into handing over money through gift cards and cryptocurrency. This is a win for victims an ocean away, and a marker of how seriously Indian police are now treating scams that target the US.

Primary source: Lucknow Police Press Note No. 0-1099, dated 2 July 2026 (original, Hindi PDF)

At a glance

What happened

On 1 July 2026, the Cyber Crime Cell and Cyber Crime Police Station of Commissionerate Lucknow raided a fake international call centre operating inside the Summit Building in Vibhuti Khand. According to the police, the gang used internet calling systems and modern digital tools to reach foreign nationals, above all Americans, and defraud them in the name of well known companies and US government agencies. The raid ended with 119 arrests and the seizure of laptops, calling phones, internet-calling equipment, forged documents and a large volume of digital evidence.

The police have named Lalit Khairajani and Vikram Singh Parmar as the operations managers of the centre. A case, Crime No. 78/2026, has been registered at the Cyber Crime Police Station, and the search for the network's financiers, technical collaborators and possible interstate and international links is continuing.

How the scam worked

Police describe a machine built to manufacture fear and then convert it into money. It ran on two layers of impersonation, feeding a four-stage assembly line that moved a victim from a scary text message to an emptied bank account. The flow below reconstructs the method from the police account.

The four-stage assembly line

To win a victim's confidence, the callers emailed forged US government paperwork, including fake court orders, Identity Theft Reports, FTC letters, investigation reports and non-disclosure agreements dressed up to look like genuine records. The centre used a VoIP calling system and the Eyebeam Dialer, software that is banned in India, to place the calls. The message at every stage was the same: something terrible is about to happen to you, and the only way out is to move your money the way we tell you.

Run like a company

Investigators say the operation was structured like a corporate BPO, with each employee assigned a defined role across the four teams. Staff were recruited from many states, chosen for prior experience in BPO or international calling work, and housed through a front company called Solaris Solutions. No employee received an appointment letter, contract or any legal documentation. The recruits came from at least sixteen states, with the largest clusters from Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Gujarat and Assam.

Following the money

Crucially, no money moved directly into bank accounts. Victims paid in gift cards, digital vouchers and cryptocurrency, a deliberate choice to hide the true source of the funds and the people who ultimately received them, and to make the trail far harder for investigators to follow. Police say the illegal proceeds were then routed onward through various digital channels.

What police seized

The seized devices yielded calling scripts, data on foreign nationals, email templates, forged court orders and FTC letters, and the banned Eyebeam Dialer. All of it is now being analysed by experts to trace the network's servers, email accounts and financial beneficiaries.

The 119 accused

The following individuals were named in the police press note. Numbers 1 and 2 are described by police as the centre's operations managers. All 119 are accused and under investigation; an arrest is not a conviction, and each is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.

The police teams behind the bust

The raid was carried out under Police Commissioner Amarendra Kumar Sengar, with Joint CP (Crime & HQ) Aparna Kumar, DCP (Crime) Anil Kumar Yadav and Additional DCP (Crime) Kiran Yadav (IPS) in the supervisory chain. The arresting teams:

The charges

Case Crime No. 78/2026 has been registered at the Cyber Crime Police Station, Commissionerate Lucknow, under Sections 3(5), 61(2), 318(4), 319(2), 336(3), 337, 338, 339 and 340(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS); Sections 66C and 66D of the Information Technology Act; and Section 42 of the Telecommunications Act, 2023. Sections 66C and 66D of the IT Act cover identity theft and cheating by personation using a computer resource, the legal heart of an impersonation scam like this one.

Why this matters for the US and India

For American readers, this is a rare piece of good news in a fraud epidemic that the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center says costs US victims billions every year. Many of these “government imposter” and tech-support scams are run from call centres overseas, which is exactly why arrests are so hard to come by. A 119-person takedown in Lucknow means real operators pulled offline and real evidence seized, not just another warning to consumers.

For India, it is a statement of intent. The Lucknow Commissionerate Police say they are working under a Zero Tolerance Policy against cybercrime and will keep pursuing the financiers, technical collaborators and any interstate or international links behind this network. Cross-border scams only end when the country hosting the call centre treats foreign victims as its own responsibility, and this raid is a concrete example of that. The investigation continues.

Frequently asked questions

Who did this call centre target? Foreign nationals, and especially citizens of the United States, according to the Lucknow Police.

How did the scam work? Callers posed first as companies like Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, then as US agencies such as the FBI and FTC, frightening victims into moving money via gift cards, cryptocurrency or shipped cash and gold.

How many people were arrested? 119, in a single raid on 1 July 2026, along with 103 laptops and 177 calling phones.

Are the 119 guilty? No. They are accused and under investigation. An arrest is not a conviction, and everyone is presumed innocent until a court decides otherwise.

What should I do if I get a call like this? No real government agency threatens you by phone and demands payment in gift cards, crypto or cash. Hang up, and if you are in the US report it to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov and the FBI at ic3.gov.

Source

Based on the Police Commissionerate Lucknow press note No. 0-1099, dated 2 July 2026 (English translation of the Hindi original), announcing the 1 July 2026 raid and Case Crime No. 78/2026. All names, ages, home states and figures are as stated in that press note. The accused are under investigation and presumed innocent unless convicted.

If you or someone you know has been targeted by a scam like this, you are not alone. See our cybercrime help hub for step-by-step reporting and recovery guides.