A call centre that was allegedly duping foreign nationals and Indians by employees posing as representatives of software, telecom and insurance companies was shut down in Salt Lake’s CG Block in northeast Kolkata on Friday.
The call centre, called I Core Vision Pvt Ltd, was owned by Shashi Gaurav Soni and his brother Sourabh, who own and operate multiple call centres across the city and are in currently in police remand, a senior officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said.
The Soni brothers, from Liluah in Howrah, had been arrested by the Bidhannagar commissionerate on March 5 and again on March 14.
The cops had recovered around Rs 4 crore and a Land Rover Defender SE — an SUV with a Rs 1 crore-plus price tag — a Land Rover Discovery Sport, a kilo of gold, deeds of flats and plots, a revolver and six bullets from two flats in New Town’s Sankalpa housing complex when the two were first arrested. The seized items had allegedly been stashed by the two and their associates.
On Thursday, a police team from the Bidhannagar commissionerate sealed another call centre that was owned by the brothers in AL Block.
“Both call centres duped foreign nationals and those staying in India through various means. We shut both down,” a senior officer of the commissionerate said.
When the two were arrested earlier this month, a Barrackpore court had granted them bail. On Tuesday, they had been produced before a court in Salt Lake and sent to an eight-day police remand.
The call centres shut down on Thursday and Friday were being operated from residential buildings.
The officer said they had observed call centre owners were now shifting their establishments to residential buildings to avoid suspicion.
“This is a new ploy adopted by them to ensure they can evade the cops’ radar. We are maintaining constant surveillance,” the officer said.
According to figures released by the Bidhannagar commissionerate, a total of at least 54 call centres that used to generate business by duping people have been shut down and 527 people have been arrested.
In the past couple of weeks alone, 13 call centres have been shut down and 127 persons have arrested.