Chandigarh, Jul 24 (PTI) The Enforcement Directorate raided some call centres located in and around Chandigarh which were allegedly cheating foreigners in the guise of providing technical support services and were laundering funds worth crores of rupees, official sources said on Thursday.

The searches were launched on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday in Chandigarh and adjoining cities of Mohali in Punjab and Panchkula in Haryana under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), they said.

These call centres were allegedly cheating foreigners in the guise of providing non-existent tech support services. It was found that the companies operating these call centres had counterpart companies abroad to receive "fraudulent" funds through various payment gateways, which were then remitted to India through banking channels as well as hawala, the sources said.

According to the websites of these companies, they provide software support services like web designing and fixed wireless internet services, etc.

The details of their promoters, directors or team members were not mentioned, the ED found.

Some of them have posted pictures of big IT parks on their websites, which is contrary to reality, the sources said.

The business activities of these call centres were being conducted in a completely "clandestine" manner and their employees were found to be lacking the professional training required for running a call centre or business process outsourcing (BPO) facility, they said.

The ED sources said a call centre named FSAL Technologies was found to be running a "fake" facility and had opened a company named Bios Tech based in the US. It claimed to offer support services for Microsoft, HP printers, routers and other hardware.

The ED analysed call transcripts and web platforms of these call centres.

FASL Technologies' IP address was found to be hosting a website with a name similar to that of a well-known US tech company, Geek Squad, the sources said.

Some other facilities -- Terrasparq and Visionaire -- were also searched and sources claimed they were doing such "fraud" since 2016. PTI NES DIV DIV

Money laundering investigation targets call centres alleging fake tech support fraud, cross border transfers via payment gateways and hawala. Enforcement action under PMLA targets call centres alleged to run fraudulent tech support schemes against foreign victims and launder proceeds via counterpart entities abroad, payment gateways, banking channels and hawala. Investigators relied on web and IP analysis, call transcripts and transactional tracing to link named facilities-FASL/FSAL Technologies, Bios Tech, Terrasparq and Visionaire-to deceptive websites, omitted corporate disclosures, misleading imagery and under trained staff inconsistent with advertised services.