Ludhiana: From employees to kingpins of fake call centres

LUDHIANA: The kingpins of the fake call centres—which duped foreign nationals and were busted last week in Ludhiana and Mohali—were earlier agents of a man who ran a similar centre near Cheema Chowk in 2018. After learning the techniques from there, the accused started their own con job. Besides, the police have also started the process to freeze bitcoins they purchased with the swindled money.
Additional deputy commissioner of police Rupinder Kaur Bhatti said, “It was found during investigation that a person, whose name cannot be disclosed yet, was running a similar fraud call centre from Ludhiana’a Cheema Chowk in 2018. He was also from Gujarat. The now-arrested accused—Dhruv, Peenak, Pratik and Yatin—were working as his agents. Along with him, they would call up the foreign nationals and dupe them. With the imposition of the lockdown, that call centre stopped operating. Since then, these accused were not in touch with that man. Thereafter, they formed their own group and started a similar call centre.”
The accused ran the fake call centre from different parts of Ludhiana like Cheema Chowk, vegetable market, Shekhewal and Pakhowal Road. “They would look for buildings with multiple offices, so that they did not come to notice. Also, their preference was to get a workplace near a telecommunication office,” she added. Their Pakhowal Road call centre was busted on June 30.
Bhatti said, “We will try to trace that man also as he could be running another such call centre. Accused Yatin, Pratik and Peenak had purchased bitcoins worth Rs 50 lakh with the cheated money. We have started the process to freeze these. Also, the bank accounts of all the accused, which have Rs 39 lakh, will be frozen.”