GURUGRAM: Seven people were arrested and a fake call centre was busted on Saturday in Udyog Vihar-5 for allegedly cheating people in UK and US in the name of insurance and lottery.
The cyber cell of Gurugram police, which is tracking fake call centres operating in the city, got information about the bogus call centre operating from a building in Udyog Vihar. "After getting the information, we conducted a raid in the building and busted the fake call centre. Seven people were arrested from the spot. Computers and phones used for running the centre were also seized from the spot," said SHO of Udyog Vihar police station Ajaybir Singh.
The arrested have been identified as Suresh Waikhom, Niam, Haopu, Shimrog, Macduf - residents of
Manipur - Alung, who is a resident of Nagaland, and
Manoj Kumar (IT head of the company), resident of
Gorakhpur in UP.
They have been booked under sections 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating) of the IPC and section 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) and 75 (any offence or contravention committed outside India by any person irrespective of his nationality) of the IT Act.
Singh told TOI that the accused used to contact foreign nationals and convinced them that they have won a lottery and then ask them to pay a certain amount as processing fee for transferring the winning amount. In accident related cases, the accused - who already had access to insurance claims details of foreign national - called up the clients posing as representatives of the insurance company seeking processing fees for the amount to be cleared.
Elaborating about the mode of money transfer, police said the accused used to ask victims to purchase iTune cards which was then sold on dark web and the money was recovered through bitcoins. "The call centre was functional for last five months and each employee was given a target against which they got their salary and bonus," said a police officer.
The accused were produced in court on Sunday. While Manoj Kumar was taken on 3-day police remand, the other six accused were sent to judicial custody. Police sources revealed that the mastermind behind the fake call centre is still at large and they hope to get some information on him while interrogating the accused.
Picture used for representational purpose
