Police shut down two call centres, in New Town and Salt Lake, and arrested four men for allegedly duping people in India and abroad by posing as officials of software and anti-virus companies.
In New Town, a police team conducted raids on a flat in Sankalpa II housing complex early on Saturday, an officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said.
The employees of the call centre would place VOIP calls using anti-tracing and tracking software to the US, the UK and Australia by posing as officials of various software companies, the officer said.
“We had received a tip-off that foreign nationals were being duped in the name of providing software and technical support by some men who had set up their operations in a New Town housing complex. We used our sources and electronic surveillance to zero in on the flat. Once we got a location, our team raided it and we arrested four men,” the officer said.
Based on information given by the arrested four, a team from the Bidhannagar East police station raided a house in Salt Lake’s AL Block in Sector II, which was empty at the time of the raid, and sealed it.
The police identified the arrested as Kamal Sharma, 28, Manish Yadav, 32, Mufeez Maniar, 22, and Yasir Khan, 25. Sharma hails from Delhi and the other three from Ahmedabad, the officer said.
The police said they had seized more than Rs 13 lakh.
Over 50 computers, multiple smartphones and ATM cards have also been seized.
The men were produced before a court in Salt Lake that remanded them in police custody.
“They are part of a racket that would open call centres and dupe people. We are trying to arrest the others who are involved in this,” said the officer.
A senior officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said several call centre operatives were now shifting tactics and instead of hiring offices, were taking flats and portions of houses on rent to carry out their fraudulent activities.