Chandigarh, July 25 -- The Chandigarh Zonal Office-I of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted midnight searches across multiple locations in the tricity, busting illegal call centres that were duping foreign customers under the guise of providing non-existent technical support services.

The fraudulent operations targeted overseas clients, particularly in the US, posing as authorised tech support providers for well-known companies like Microsoft, HP and Arlo, the ED said in statement.

The scam involved creating overseas counterpart companies to receive payments from unsuspecting customers, which were later routed to India through banking channels and hawala networks, said ED sources.

As per ED, one of the key firms under the scanne...