Seven men allegedly involved in running a call centre were arrested late on Tuesday on the charge of duping people, including foreign nationals.
Salt Lake cyber crime police raided Nexus, the call centre on the ground floor of a residential building in Salt Lake’s AG Block.
The cops caught the men while they were placing international voice over IP calls, an officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said.
“The men would use international calls to connect with people living in Germany and Australia and would dupe them on the pretext of providing tech support, website building and scheduled maintenance of internet speeds,” said the officer.
The callers would make voice over IP calls using computers at the call centre, the officer said. “They duped victims who followed their directions and installed a mirroring software through which they could take money out of their bank accounts.”
The cops have started a case under IPC sections related to cheating, fraud, forgery and criminal conspiracy and sections of the IT Act.
The arrested seven were produced at a Salt Lake court that sent them to judicial custody.
The arrests come about a week after an expose by US-based YouTuber Mark Rober, who in a 26-minute video documented three fraudulent call centres in Sector V and New Town.
Bidhannagar police raided one of them on May 11, shut it down and arrested 15 men.
“Many fraudulent companies have a frontal section where they carry out genuine activities... But they run illegal activities in other sections of the office,” said a senior officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate.
