On January 28, 2026, police in Kolkata, West Bengal, India raided an illegal call center operating out of an apartment near the Sealdah ESI Hospital for facilitating a PayPal technical support scam operation, where:
- The scammers will handle calls under the false personation of PayPal executives.
- The victims will be coerced into granting the scammers remote access to their devices through AnyDesk, TeamViewer and UltraViewer.
- With this remote access, the scammers will gain access to the victims’ bank and PayPal accounts and siphon the money off to digital wallets used to convert the laundered funds into Indian rupees.
Five bhenchods were arrested during the operation:
- Sarim Reza, the kingpin of the scam operation.
- Sandeep Chowdhury
- Ankit Pradeep
- Nazish Ahmed
- Mohammed Asif Akhtar
Police have also seized 12 laptops, 6 cell phones, 6 headsets and 3 routers during the raid.