Fake call centre: Engineering grad among four held
LUCKNOW :The city police cyber crime cell arrested a 24-year-old engineering graduate and his three accomplices for operating a fake call centre from SBI colony on Sitapur road in Madiaon area here on Friday.
The youth who had pursued his engineering from a reputed college of Allahabad was operating the fake call centre for the past several months. He had duped gullible people on the pretext of selling insurance and investment schemes over phone and is said to have earned several lakhs.
He was leading a luxurious life while staying in a rented flat in the state capital and owned high end four-wheelers.
Nodal officer of cyber crime cell Abhay Mishra said those arrested were identified as the racket’s mastermind Gaurav Singh, 24, and his three friends Arpit Singh, 24, Atul Kumar Singh,31, and Suraj Soni, 26.
He said Gaurav passed BTech in information technology stream from NITM engineering college of Allahabad two years ago.
His friend Arpit is a law graduate and Atul has done graduation from Allahabad University while Suraj is an intermediate pass out.
Mishra said Gaurav planned to run the fake call centre after completing his engineering course for which he roped in his two close friends Arpit and Atul and they took a house on rent in Madiaon for the purpose.
He said the fraudsters initially used to make calls to people themselves offering them different insurance and investment schemes but gradually they hired at least 15 youngsters to make calls to investors.
He said the used to get data of people of other states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattishgarh, Bihar and Haryana from one Amit Singh.
He said they used to frequently call people on random basis and laid the trap for those who showed interest in their schemes.
“They used to get the money transferred in their bank accounts opened on forged identity proofs in the name of processing fees and sent forged documents to victims. They used to switch off their mobile numbers before the victims could understand that they had been duped,” he said.
The officer said the mastermind and his two friends had earned huge wealth in very short span and were leading a luxurious life.
He said they have kept their parents and family members in the dark by saying that they had started their start-up programme and it was running successfully.
It is the second such fake call centre case in the city unearthed in last 10 days.
On August 29, four other youths including two brothers, Abhishek Pal and Arun Pal, both residents of Mau district, Shashank Nayar of Ghaizabad and Ritesh Srivastava of Kanpur district were arrested for operating a fake call centre for past multiple months from a rented house in Indira Nagar locality.