The fraudsters are located in the business districts of Calcutta or Delhi. Inside it looks like any ordinary call center. The employees work in shifts based on the times of day in the countries in which they want to exploit people: USA, Australia, Europe. There where inexperienced, mostly elderly people live with a lot of money. The fraudsters then pretend to be employees of large US tech companies who want to solve technical problems on their victims’ computers. Instead, they steal large amounts from their online accounts. This can be seen in videos of Youtubers who initially pretend to be ignorant victims, but at the same time spy on the perpetrators themselves, hack them and in the end confront them with their amoral acts.
Two companies from Swabia play a key role in this global scam: Teamviewer and Anydesk, either one or the other appears in almost every video. Both companies deal with remote maintenance: With their programs, users can access someone else’s computer and control the mouse and keyboard there. Children can solve their parents’ computer problems, IT departments can help their less tech-savvy colleagues, or fraudsters can plunge unsuspecting pensioners into poverty.