STF busts fake call centre duping foreigners, 2 held
DEHRADUN: The Special Task Force (STF) of Uttarakhand police claimed to bust a fake call centre in Patel Nagar of Dehradun that was duping people in other countries on the pretext of offering services of antivirus software.
The STF officers, who shared the information about a late night raid on Friday, said on Saturday that they arrested two accused in the case including mastermind who hailed from Assam and living in Dehradun since 2015.
Deputy inspector general, STF, Nilesh Anand Bharne said the accused were identified as Thuanriapou Rongmei, the mastermind form Assam, and his acquaintance Pradeep Nehwal, a resident of Dehradun, who were arrested from their fake call centre being run in Shimla Bypass road area of Patel Nagar.
“The raid was conducted by police after receiving a tip-off about it. As per the information, the accused were found at the said address after which they were nabbed. Later during questioning, they confessed to committing cyber fraud by duping people of the country as well as abroad on pretext of providing customer care service of known antivirus companies and mobile phone companies,” said Bharne.
The police officer said during interrogation, the main accused Rongmei, who uses an alias Victor, said he was involved in this cyber crime since 2018.
“He told police that he had come to Dehradun from Assam in 2015 where he stated working at a registered call centre in the city’s IT Park. There he learnt about a software being used by the company which shares the screen of computer of a user on their computer system to solve software issues. The call centre then shut down in 2018 after which he started his own technology company named Tech Trust IT which is not registered,” said Bharne.
Rongmei then bought a software from dark web through which he sent sponsored emails to hundreds of people in foreign countries stating that his company customer care services for the antivirus and mobile phone companies.
“He and his co-accused also bought a toll free number as their company’s customer care number. When the victims called the number, he introduced himself as a citizen of their own country and customer care executive. On pretest of providing services, he charged about USD 200-400 each and duped them of lakhs. During the probe, transactions worth ₹80 lakh were found in his three bank accounts on last six months,” said Bharne.