A team from the Salt Lake cyber crime police station has arrested seven persons from a fradulent call centre in Sector V for allegedly duping British and Belgian nationals by posing as representatives of global software majors.
The cops raided the call centre — Vineet Technologies — early on Tuesday.
The employees at the call centre used to call up their potential victims and inform them that their internet-enabled devices like laptops and computers were under a virus attack or the licence of the software installed in them had expired, a senior officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said.
“All of them were caught while placing VOIP calls to their potential victims. These calls are extremely difficult to track and we have recovered equipment required to place such calls as well as data shaders containing hundreds of cellphone numbers of people based in the UK and Belgium,” said the officer.
According to the officer, the call centre had been operating since 2020 and has duped thousands of people.
In addition to the data sheets, cell phones and electronic devices, the police team also seized Rs 53,000.
The 26-seat call centre spread over 1,500sqft was located on the 13th floor of the Bengal Eco Intelligence Park’s Tower I in Sector V.
“The monthly rent for an office like this ranges from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1.5 lakh a month,” an officer of the cyber crime police station in Salt Lake said.
The seven men have been sent to police remand for four days.