Mumbai: Police bust Goregaon 'call centre' that duped US nationals, arrest 6

MUMBAI: Vanrai police busted a call centre-like setup in Goregaon (E) from where calls were made to dupe American nationals into making payments to "fix" malware on their computers. While six men associated with the fake call centre have been arrested, the two owners are on the run, said the police.
Police said some of the accused were previously booked by the crime branch for running a similar bogus call centre in 2018.
On August 26, a joint team of Vanrai police station and Dindoshi police station, based on a tipoff, carried out a raid at the fake call centre that was functioning out of a 60ftx20ft space at a commercial complex since June. Police found 18 tele-callers with their headphones on at work.
On checking the 25 computers on the premises, they found files with contact details of American nationals, besides software used for making international calls over the internet. There were also audio and video clips of conversations with Americans. Some data had been deleted, said an officer.
"The accused had gathered contact details of American nationals and the tele-callers would call them up and say that their computers had been infected with malware. The tele-callers would then offer to clean up the computer remotely if the victim transferred money," said an officer. Gift cards were accepted as a form of payment and later encashed in India. At least 100 Americans have been duped.
The facility neither had a registration certificate from the department of telecommunication nor a licence to run a call centre. Those present at the facility couldn't produce relevant documents.
Police seized two laptops belonging to the owners, two hard discs, 10 cellphones of which eight had no SIM or memory card and Rs 3.2 lakh cash. The tele-callers were paid a monthly salary of Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000, police said.
An FIR was registered against the two owners, IT assistant Brendan Fernandes, floor manager Akash Khaire, technical assistant Jason Mathew, tele-caller coordinator James Albuquerque, hardware assistant Shubham Singh, and customer relationship executive Samson Thomas.
Charges of cheating under the Indian Penal Code have been applied against all of them, besides provisions of the Information Technology Act. Six of the accused were arrested on August 28.