Unnao resident arrested for running fake call centre

LUCKNOW: A 24-year-old Unnao resident was arrested by the cyber cell team of the Lucknow police for allegedly running a fake call centre. The accused was arrested from his hideout in Adil Nagar locality of Gudamba police station area here on Friday.

The accused identified as Paras Mishra was reportedly a good scholar and was pursuing graduation in science when he started trying to generate some income to overcome his financial crisis. His desperation propelled him to commit fraud by setting up a fake call centre and duping gullible youths on the pretext of providing them jobs in private banks as well as other organisations, said police.

The investigations revealed that Paras was running the fake call centre for the past three years and had duped over ₹50 lakh from hundreds of youths of different states by assuring them jobs.

Circle officer of Hazratganj Abhay Mishra said the youth first created a website (Shine dot com) and posted multiple jobs on it to lure unemployed youths.

He said Paras used to call the interested candidates and got them to deposit cash through e-wallet in the name of registration and processing fees. He said the fraudster used to make calls through SIM cards procured on forged identities and he changed the number after every 15 days.

S-I Rahul Rathore said he was on police radar after a woman complained against him a few months ago. “We traced his hideout in Aliganj, but he escaped. He then changed his hideout again,” he stated. Rathore said the police were initially aware of at least two cases registered against the fraudster in Lucknow. “But he confessed that he duped several hundred youths from UP, MP, Rajasthan, Bihar and Jharkhand. More complainants will turn up now,” he said.

Rathore said details of many youths had been found in a register maintained by the accused and the tablet recovered from him. Over 50 pre-activated SIM cards were also recovered, and an FIR was registered in the case.