Nine persons working at a call centre in Salt Lake in northeast Kolkata have been arrested for allegedly duping people in the US, Australia and Germany by posing as representatives of the support system of Microsoft.
The alleged imposters would pretend to offer technical support to Microsoft’s clients abroad and in return get payments in form of Apple and Google Pay gift cards, said Surya Pratap Yadav, deputy commissioner, headquarters, Bidhannagar police commissionerate.
Officers of the cyber police station of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said the alleged racketeers had collated a list of customers of Microsoft and sent them phishing e-mails offering tech support.
“If someone responded to the email, the racketeers would connect with him or her through voice internet protocol calls and pretend to offer technological support regarding a software. In return they would take their payments in the form of gift cards,” said an officer.
The racketeers would redeem the Apple and Google Pay gift cards encash them through their own accounts.
By the time the clients abroad realised they had been cheated, the gift cards were encashed.
The police said they were looking for this gang for the past few months following complaints of cheating and mischief.
The accused who have been arrested included the manager of the call centre and eight others. They are from Topsia, Entally and Narkeldanga.
The police said the mastermind, Shahbaaz, who owns the call centre, fled when cops raided the building in AL Block of Salt Lake on Tuesday night.
“He (Shahbaaz) fled in his car and hit a police vehicle while speeding away. We are scanning CCTV camera footage to know details of the vehicle in which he fled,” said the officer.
The police said they have seized 30 computers, 13 mobile phones, three routers, three hard disks, one car and a list of persons who are all customers of Microsoft and could be the racket’s potential targets.
Employees at several unauthorised call centres in the city were found in the recent past involved in attempts to dupe people in the UK and Australia by posing as representatives of an e-commerce giant or a global company that offers computer hardware solutions.
Senior officers said it was always advisable for internet users to obtain the call centre numbers of any company only from the official website of that company.
“Don’t search for the number at random from search engines, which can be edited or manipulated very easily, or from emails sent from unidentified users,” an officer said.