A “director” of a company, that has allegedly cheated hundreds of people across the state by promising them high returns in the form of rent and other payments for space to install cell phone towers, was arrested on Saturday.

Manoj Kumar Chatterjee was arrested by a team from Salt Lake cyber crime police station, a senior officer of Bidhannagar Commissionerate said.

The Telegraph reported in May that officers from the Bidhannagar Commissionerate’s cyber crime police station, acting on a complaint lodged by Dharmadeb Mondal, first arrested Nirupam Mukherjee, 34, a resident of Rajarhat.

Based on the information provided by Mukherjee, the police had raided a call centre operating from a building in the BBD Bag area.

Chatterjee was a “director” of the call centre.

Twelve persons, who were placing similar calls, were also arrested during the raid, an officer of the commissionerate said.

According to the officer, Mondal received several calls in April.

The callers identified themselves as representatives of telecom companies looking for space to install cellphone towers.

Mondal had paid around ₹2.6 crore in various instalments to mobile wallets and bank account numbers after the callers convinced him to pay multiple charges like “registration fee”, “no-objection fee” and “GST charges”.

They also sent him some papers with logos similar to those a top telecom and
broadband internet service provider uses.

“These were given to him to gain his trust. He was also sent forged agreement documents. However, no tower was installed. Mondal then lodged a police complaint,” an officer said.

A senior police officer said Mondal had sold a parcel of his land, emptied his savings account and taken loans from family and friends to raise ₹2.6 crore.

Those arrested from the call centre and Mukherjee had received training to place calls posing as representatives of top telecom firms, the officer said. They targeted mostly
the elderly, women and people living in the districts and other states.

“The call centre was active for several months and during that time they had managed to cheat hundreds of people similarly,” said the officer.