The Mumbai Crime Branch has busted two call centres for allegedly duping Indian and foreign nationals on the pretext of investing into shares. The accused asked the customers victims to invest in to share through their portal and assured higher returns and as the investment has been made they stopped entertaining customers, said police. The call centre owners identified as Aditya Maheshwari, 40 and Giriraj Damani, 39 have been arrested said police.
Police inspector Vinayak Chavhan incharge of crime branch unit 11 received specific information that call centre involved in duping Indian and foreign nationals mostly from Gulf countries have been operating in Malad west. Acting on the information the crime branch team raided both the call centres simultaneously and found 70 people working there at that time, of them 59 were tele-callers, said officials
According to the officials, the accused on the pretext of calling from Singapore assured the victims of high returns and lured them to invest $200 in national or international stocks through their portal 70trades.com. Initially they promised customers profit of ₹1500 - ₹2000 per day on the investment and once the payment were made they stopped entertaining them.
Since all the calls were made using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) it became difficult to trace their location said a crime branch office. The police have seized server, laptops and multiple hard disks.
Both Maheshwari and Damani have been arrested under the relevant sections for cheating along with relevant sections of Information Technology act along with Telegraph act, the accused were produced before the court on Wednesday which sent them police custody till 28.
“We have appealed to people that if they have invested in 70trades.com for national or international shares or they have been duped by the portal then they should report to crime branch unit 11,” said Akbar Pathan, Deputy Commissioner of Police crime branch
