NEW DELHI: Romance-related frauds and ‘tech support’ pop ups, originating largely from illegal call centres and phishing gangs in India, have caused losses of more than $3 billion (Rs 25,000 crore) to gullible elderly US citizens in the last two years alone, according to FBIdata.Alarmed by the phishing gangs operating out of India defrauding elderly US citizens of their life savings, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) now has deputed a permanent representative at the US embassy in New Delhi to work closely with the CBI, Interpoland the Delhi Police to bust these gangs and freeze money transferred through wire and crypto currencies to syndicates operating from Indian soil.In an exclusive interview, Suhel Daud, the legal attache with the US embassy here and FBI’s South Asia head, told TOI that the romance-related frauds reported on FBI’s website by victims show estimated losses of Rs 8,000 crore in 2021 and Rs 8,000 crore in the last 11 months of 2022.The FBI’s South Asia head spoke about the Bureau’s enhanced cooperation with Indian agencies to bust these illegal gangs that have put the world’s fifth-largest economy at the risk of being labelled as net exporter of internet and call centre-related swindles.Daud said the FBI’s website for reporting internet crimes (ic3.gov) have registered about 8.5 lakh complaints in 2021 with estimated losses of $6.9 billion, and over 7.8 lakh complaints in the 11 months of 2022, accounting for $10.2 billion in losses."