Six men were arrested for allegedly operating a fake call centre from a rented apartment inside a New Town housing complex on Thursday.

The group cheated both foreign nationals as well as people across the country to the tune of Rs 5 crore, police said.

An officer of Bidhannagar Commissionerate said that the men used to call people in US and Canada, among others, posing as officials of major software providers like Microsoft and inform them that their computer data and operating system have been compromised and an urgent upgrade of software is required.

“The victims would be asked to download a software which would allow the men remote access to the computer. Once the victim would enter the payment gateway to transfer the fee for the services, these men would alter the amount with a much higher number,” the officer said.

This apart, these men would also pose as officials of mobile network providers and would offer people money in exchange for space to install 5G mobile-towers.

“The men would offer Rs 10 lakh as installation fees and then Rs 30,000 as a monthly rent for the space needed for the mobile tower. A person who would agree would be asked to deposit Rs 25,000 as processing fee. All communications would stop once the victim would transfer the sum,” said the officer.

The officer said that they have checked all the bank accounts used by the group and found that they had been opened with fake documents.

“It is evident that there are more people involved in the racket. The people who were making the calls were only at the front, but there are those who collected the phone numbers, opened bank accounts and withdrew cash. We are we are trying to locate them,” said the officer.