3 illegal call centres targeting foreigners busted; 7 arrested

GURUGRAM: Police on Friday said they busted three illegal call centres in Faridabad and Gurugram that targeted foreigners since March and arrested a total of seven persons.

In Faridabad, two call centres operated from the fifth and seventh floors of the same complex in Sector 31. Deputy superintendent of police Inderjeet Yadav of the crime investigation department (CID), said that they acted on a tip they got on Thursday.

“We found 16 people there. The suspects had developed several fake websites, which would direct the victims to call a number for assistance. The centres were operational since March this year and mainly targeted US nationals,” he said. Police said the suspects posed as officials of law enforcement agencies and threatened to cancel their social security numbers if they did not pay a fine. Police said they found a database of US citizens and that the gang had targeted at least 800 people. The suspects are Mohit Kumar (24), Dev Vashisht (31), Prakash Singh (26), Asif Mohammad (24) of Faridabad, and Lima (32) of Nagaland. They are suspected to have duped people off $100 to $500 each, totalling ₹80 lakh.

The third call centre was at Spaze IT Park in Gurugram’s Sohna Road. Three cases were registered in both cities under sections 420 (cheating), 120B (conspiracy) of Indian Penal Code and sections 66D and 75 of the IT Act.