Fifteen men allegedly involved in running a call centre were arrested on Wednesday on the charge of duping people, including foreign nationals.
Salt Lake cyber crime police raided Met Technologies, the call centre on the fifth floor of the Eco Space building in New Town, based on information that the callers were duping citizens of the US, the UK and Australia.
They callers were posing as officials of popular software and mobile app companies, an officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said.
The arrested were employees of the call centre. “We found out the names of the owners of the call centre and initiated a case against them, too. We have launched a search for them,” said the officer.
The callers allegedly duped the targets pretending to be software service providers. They would coax the victims to install a software that would download spyware into their computers and give away their banking details, the officer said.
“This gang has duped several foreign nationals. The members claimed to provide solutions to software-related problems and even offered loans through mobile applications,” the officer said.
“They would make voice over IP calls using computers at the call centre. They duped victims who followed their directions and installed a mirroring software through which they could take money out of their bank accounts without their knowledge.”
The cops have started a case under IPC sections related to cheating, fraud, forgery and criminal conspiracy and sections of the IT Act.
The 15 arrested were produced before a court in Salt Lake.
Their lawyer, Vivek Sharma, said in court that the police had conducted a raid based on “suspicion only”.
“It is a legitimate website designing company that has been operating for several years. All the employees have been recruited through a transparent process. All their documents are in place, too,” Sharma told the court during the bail petition hearing. The court sent five of the arrested men to police custody and 10 to judicial custody for ten days.