A woman and a man were arrested on Thursday for allegedly duping a Chhattisgarh resident out of Rs 5 lakh by promising to hand him antique coins containing copper and iridium.
Sushmita Singha Das, 36, was arrested at 8/2 Palm Avenue in south Kolkata’s Ballygunge and co-accused Abdul Aziz Gazi was picked up from Picnic Garden Road beyond Bondel Gate flyover based on a complaint by Ram Narayan Pandey of Bhilai.
In his complaint lodged with Muchipara police station, Pandey alleged the two had promised to hand him several antique coins containing copper and iridium, both expensive metal, in exchange for Rs 15 lakh. Such coins are referred to by fraudsters as “rice-puller coins”.
Pandey is said to have told the police he had paid Rs 5 lakh in advance and promised to pay the rest after getting the coins.
“Pandey waited for several weeks before he realised Sushmita and Abdul had duped him. He said the two had stopped answering his calls after some time,” said an officer in the detective department.
“While Sushmita is from Kolkata, Abdul is a resident of Dakshin Bagundi in Basirhat, North 24 Parganas district,” the officer said.
“Several groups active on social media offer ‘rice-puller’ coins. Some have Kolkata connections,” the officer said. “Usually, these gangs target rich men saying rice-puller metals have high demand among companies working in the radiation sector.”
In March 2021, three men from the city were arrested for allegedly duping a Delhi-based man of Rs 11 lakh on the pretext of selling rice-pulling metals.
A metallurgist said there was nothing like a rice-pulling coin. Iridium as an element has several uses because of its corrosion-resistant property.
35 arrested in raid on call centre
Thirty-five persons were arrested at a call centre in Salt Lake’s Sector V early on Friday for allegedly duping foreign nationals by posing as representatives and officials of health-care and insurance companies, police said.
Among those arrested were a “director” and four “senior management members” of the call centre.
A team from Electronics Complex police station in Sector V raided the call centre, Krishna Infotech, early on Friday following a tip-off that VoIP calls were being made using a masking software from there, an officer in the Bidhannagar commissionerate said.
“They were duping foreign nationals by promising them health-care and medical insurance benefits and onetime payment of huge sums. They would take remote access of the victims computers or phones and siphon money off their bank accounts,” the officer said.