PUNE: The Crime Branch of Pune city police on Friday busted an illegal call centre operating in Kharadi for allegedly duping American and Canadian citizens by impersonating as officials from the US Social Security Administration. 

Acting on a tip-off received by ACP (Crime 2) Bhanupratap Barge, a team swooped down on the office of Jarvis Tech Pvt Ltd on the first floor of Pride Icon building in Kharadi. 

Five persons were arrested and 25 hard disks, 14 laptops, 14 headphones, five ATM cards, five phones, communication scripts, company seals, registration certificates were seized. 

The accused persons were identified as Shalin Vipinbhai Panchal, Dhananjay alias Bittu Vipinbhai Panchal, Nisarg Subhashbhai Pandit, Mitesh Gokulbhai Thakkar (24), all natives of Gujarat and Aishwarya Mohan Bhardwaj (27) of Palghar. 

An FIR has been registered against them with Chandan Nagar police station for offences under sections 420 (cheating) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). 

According to the police, the accused persons operated the call centre and their staff used to call up citizens of US and Canada. “They would impersonate officials of the Social Security Administration and inform them that their Social Security Number (SSN) is being misused. They would win over the confidence of the people and fraudulently make them buy iTunes card, gift cards etc,” said ACP Barge. 

DCPs Jyotipriya Singh and Shirish Sardeshpande supervised the raiding team which included Police Inspectors Santosh Barge, Gajanan Pawar (Unit 2), API Sagar Panmand and PSI Kiran Auti.