How a Chinese scam exploded in India

Why read this story?

Editor's note: Dipesh Nagpal wasn’t expecting the call he received at 7 pm on 12 August 2020. A product manager at a Chinese company in Gurugram, Nagpal had finished his work-from-home shift and was sitting down to dinner with his parents in West Delhi’s Rajendra Nagar. The caller was Ankit Kapoor, one of his bosses, who ordered him to drive 30 km to Gurugram for an emergency meeting at a location unknown to him.  Nagpal hadn’t attended a physical work meeting since March, when India went into its first coronavirus lockdown, let alone been called to work after office hours. He was a new hire at Linkyun Technology Pvt. Ltd, a payment aggregator that facilitated the business of Chinese companies in India. “I thought maybe they are meeting a client and need me for a technical brief,” he said.  He started on his motorbike, following directions Kapoor sent him on the phone. The destination turned out to be an empty tract of land—all he could see was a police station at a distance. He called up Kapoor. “He told me to come …