A businessman filed a police complaint on Sunday alleging that he received a call on his WhatsApp number where the caller demanded Rs 1 crore and threatened him that if there was no payment it would result in his kidnap and murder.
The accused was arrested later on Sunday. “What at first seemed to be a call from a gangster, turned out to be a trickster’s ploy to earn some cash, a police officer said.
Police identified the accused as Mrityunjoy Dey, a resident of Belgharia.
“According to the complaint, the businessman had received a WhatsApp call where the caller demanded Rs 1 crore. He was threatened that if the money was not paid in the next 15 minutes, he would be kidnapped and murdered,” said an officer of Lake Town police station.
The police said they tracked the WhatsApp number from where the call was made and found that the number was registered in the name of one Mrityunjoy Dey. An address in Belgharia was registered with the phone number. On reaching the address, the police team found that Dey was not at home.
The team then tracked his phone’s tower location and zeroed in on him at a place in Dum Dum.
“Dey was arrested from MM Ghosh Road in Dum Dum,” said an officer.
“He was arrested from Dum Dum. A search conducted at his Belgharia home revealed that he was in possession of several forms and applications for several jobs in the Kolkata airport. Many airport passes were also seized,” said the officer.
A senior officer of the Bidhannagar police said that they have found out that Dey had been arrested earlier on cheating, forgery and attempt to extortion charges. He is also involved in multiple criminal cases. The officer added that it was advisable to never receive audio or video calls on WhatsApp from unknown numbers.
“This is not the first time that a WhatsApp call has been used for trapping people. Many get trapped in the racket of sextortion just by responding to a video call on WhatsApp,” said the officer.
In this case, the call made to the complainant was an audio call, the police said.
Raid on ‘fraudulent’ call centre, 10 men arrested
Police raided a house in the Bishnupur area of Rajarhat on Monday from where allegedly a fraudulent call centre was being operated.
The team arrested 10 men for allegedly duping people posing as representatives from software companies or online gaming platforms.
The men, all from different parts of Chattisgarh, were found to be placing calls using VoIP software and trying to dupe people posing as representatives of different gaming platforms, an officer said. The VoIP software makes it extremely difficult to trace a call.
The call centre had been operating for the past several months, another officer said.
Apart from duping Indians, the employees would also call citizens of the US, UK and Australia posing as officials of software and anti-virus firms.
The cops have seized several laptops, cellphones, debit cards and chequebooks.