A dozen men who were allegedly running a call centre fraudulently posing as representatives of global e-commerce giant Amazon from an office along EM Bypass have been arrested.

Police said people would receive a call and hear an automated voice talk about various “offers” available on Amazon. If a person showed interest, the call would be transferred to a “representative of Amazon” who would share a few steps to make the online payment for the purchase.

“These youths would introduce themselves as Allen, Peter or Duke and convince the customer to download a software on his or her phone to make the payment. The racketeers would then gain access to the customer’s device by asking them to share a code generated on the device,” said an officer at Lalbazar.

Officers of the detective department conducted a raid on a third-floor flat of a building on Chowbhaga Road in Tiljala, off EM Bypass, early on Wednesday and arrested the 12.

A CPU, three hard disks, two Wi-Fi routers, an attendance register and some documents were seized.

The accused, aged between 20 and 43, are from Tiljala, Topsia, Phoolbagan and Narendrapur.