The Pimpri Chinchwad police have busted two fake call centres, operating from a plush mall of Gera’s Imperium in Hinjewadi Phase 2 IT Park, for allegedly duping several US citizens. The police detained 23 people, four of whom have been arrested so far.
Police said call center employees are well-trained to conduct phone conversations with US citizens using aliases. Police said they were provided with English scripts to target American citizens by faking American accents.
Acting on a tip-off from Police Commissioner Vinoy Kumar Chaubey, two teams led by Inspector Ravikiran Nali of the Cyber Crime Police Station and Inspector Arvind Pawar of the Crime Branch, were formed to raid the two call centers in Hinjewadi on Friday morning.
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A press release said Inspector Neil’s team raided an alleged fake call center called “Sky High Solution”. Police found that the owner, manager and seven employees of the call center interacted with US citizens, using communication systems such as “TeleCMI”, “Dailer” and “Phound”. Police seized nine computers, two laptops and scripts from the site.
The police said that the call center employee used aliases and made phone calls to American citizens claiming to be employees of the “Medical Health Administration” in the United States of America. They asked the victims whether they faced any side effects after using certain drugs and talcum powders, which cause medical problems such as cancer or “non-Hodgkin lymphoma.”
For victims who said they had faced any medical problems, call center staff collected their personal information and assured them that they would help provide compensation by filing cases against pharmaceutical companies. The press release stated that the extracted information was provided to some American law firms, which paid the call center in dollars.
The police also found that some customers, posing as employees of Community Choice Financial Company, collected banking details and confidential information such as user ID and passwords from victims by offering loans. They then obtained online gift vouchers or dollar money from the victims, as collateral to improve their “credit score” to obtain loans, the press release stated.
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During the raid on ‘Sky High Solution’, the police arrested its owner Sagar Kumar Yadav (32) from Hinjewadi and its manager Anand Pankaj Sinha (29) from Wagholi. A ticket was filed against them and seven employees at the cyber police station.
Meanwhile, Inspector Arvind Pawar’s team raided another alleged fake call center at ‘Tech Law Solution’. At this place too, call center agents claiming to be officials of the Medical Health Department were duping the victims using the same modus operandi, the police said.
Police arrested call center owner Dhananjay Sahbrao Kasar (25) from Mulshi and manager Harshad Shankar Khamkar (28) from Hinjewadi. A first information report has been lodged against the accused and their 11 employees in this case. Police said they seized a total of 20 hard drives and three laptops during the two raids.
Police suspect that many Americans were cheated by the accused. Police said an investigation is underway to determine the extent of the fraud.
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Assistant Commissioner of Police Vishal Haire said: “Four people, including the owners and managers of two fraudulent call centres, have been arrested. The court has remanded them in police custody till November 18 for further investigation. We have not arrested their employees, but investigation is underway to confirm their role in the crime.”
“Prima facie, it is known that the fake call centers had rented premises in the mall in Hinjewadi Phase 2 a few months ago. Investigation is being conducted to find out how they got the data of these US citizens. It is being investigated whether the accused have any connection with any US law firms. It is being investigated how the staff were recruited and trained here in these call centers to cheat the Americans. We are also investigating the bank accounts and other financial transactions made by the accused through the fake call. We are also investigating the bank accounts and other financial transactions made by the accused through the fake call,” Hare said.
(tags for translation) Pune News
