Two groups of people, who have been allegedly running fraudulent call centres in two parts of the city, have been arrested from New Town and Garia Station Road respectively on Thursday, police said.
Altogether 12 persons have been arrested from the two call centres.
The call centre at New Town was allegedly duping people in Germany posing as the technical support staff of Microsoft Corporation, while the one at Garia on the southern fringes of Kolkata was allegedly trying to cheat people by trying to sell anti-virus software for desktops and laptops.
The cyber crime police station of Bidhannagar commissionarate had received a complaint from Microsoft based on which the cops had started the probe.
“According to the complaint we received from Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt Ltd, several people in Germany had been duped in name of providing technical support in their company’s name. All the swindled money was tran-sferred to a company named Intraxis Info LLC whose address is at Chinar Park in New Town,” said an officer.
Based on this information, Bidhannagar police officers raided the Chinar Park address and arrested four persons, including two of its directors.
A senior officer of Bidhannagar police said they were in touch with the German Law Enforcement Agency for this case. The exact amount that had been swindled through this office was yet to be ascertained, the police said.
The call centre at Kalitala on Garia Station Road had a different modus operandi to cheat people.
“Their operation included procuring e-mail addresses of people who could be their possible targets and then trying to sell anti-virus software and gift cards to them by sending them phishing e-mails. People who responded would get calls from the fraudulent call centre and they would be enticed into clicking on fraudulent links,” said a senior officer of Baruipur police district.
Officers said fraudsters used to procure e-mail addresses of their targets from the Internet by paying 30 paise for each of them.
The police said they have recovered Rs 36.56 lakh from the call centre during a raid on Thursday.
Eight persons were arrested from the spot.