The Chief Minister’s flying squad busted two illegal call centres operating in Spaze IT Park, Sohna Road Sector-49 in Gurugram on Tuesday evening.
The Gurugram Police said on Wednesday that they have busted more than 25 fake call center rackets which were being run in Gurugram this year till December 13.
The call centres mostly used to cheat US nationals on the pretext of redeemed gift coupons of values ranging from one thousand to five thousand dollars and used to charge 100 to 500 dollars as service charge per client, the police said.
The police have recovered Rs 8.50 lakh and two laptops and a hard-disk along with other electronic gadgets.
According to the police, a team from the CM flying squad led by ACP Inderjeet raided the call centres which were running on the fourth floor office number 401 and 404, in Spaze IT Park building at Sector-49 in Gurugram following a tip-off .
During the first raid, the police noticed that 10 people including four girls were working in office no 401 while 12 youths including two girls were working in office no 404 who were working at the fake call centers and were communicating with US nationals. However, after questioning the police have released youths who were working there.
In connection with the incidents, the CM flying wing arrested two brothers identified as Anshu Mehta (33) and Akshay Mehta (34) of Laxmi Nagar, Delhi, the owners of the call centre operated in 401 from the spot and recovered Rs 8.50 lakh from their possession.
While the owner of the second call centre was identified as Ansh Saxena (28), a resident of Indirapuram in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, who was not found on the spot but was arrested from the vicinity after a few hours.
The culprits disclosed before the police that they used to work at a city based call center six years ago during which they got an idea of opening a call center. Both the call centers were being operated since last month.
“These fake call centres have cheated several US citizens on the pretext of providing gift coupons. The youths were employed at the call centres, which were being operated without a license issued by the Department of Telecommunications (DOT),” said Inderjeet ACP, (CM flying squad).
“During the questioning, the accused revealed that they lured thier target on pretext of lucrative gift coupons online and used to charge nearly 100 to 500 dollars per client as service charge" he added.
“The matter is under investigation. How the accused was operating the fake call centre it’s a part of an investigation. The involvement of other people cannot be ruled out,” the officer said. In both cases, FIRs under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the IT Act were registered at the Cyber Crime police station for further investigation.
