In a development in the ongoing investigations into the Mira Road call centre scam, the crime branch sleuths on Monday informed the Thane court that they had tentatively established transactions to the tune of $8,95,000 (around Rs6 crore) relating to the three call centres which were raided last week.
In a submission made before Thane’s First Class Judicial Magistrate AB Katte, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime) Mukund Hatote said that the investigators came across transactions worth 8,95,000 US dollars after examining the cell phones of the 71 persons arrested in connection with the raids conducted on three call centres at Mira Road in the nehghbouring Thane district on October 4.
The Thane crime sleuths have so far carried out searches at 12 call centres at Mira Road. Of the call centres, four were found to be deserted, when the investigators descended on the place on Saturday. Having got the scent of the impending raids, operators at the four call centres that were searched during the weekend had fled along with either CPUs or hard disks in them.
The investigators have seized hard copies of the balance sheets of four centres which are being examined. “We will soon zero in on operators of the four centres who are absconding,” a senior Thane crime branch police official said.
Meanwhile, in their submission on the findings relating to the raids cnducted on three call centres, the investigators also told the court they were able to tentatively figure out the quantum of transactions after going through the messages in the WhatsApp groups found in the phones of the accused that they seized soon after the arrest of persons behind the scam.
The police told the court that the arrested persons had allegedly duped US nationals by posing themselves as US’ Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officials. They had extracted huge sums of money from the US nationals by threatening the latter with “tax investigations”.
The police made a strong case for extension of all the 71 arrested accused on the ground that the crime committed by the accused was of a big magnitude and that it had international ramifications.
However, after hearing submission made by Hatote, the Thane court remanded 54 accused in judicial custody till October 14, while it sent 13 accused to police custody till October 14. The police custody of the three remaining three accused was extended till October 13.
Along with their remand application, the investigators produced before the court complaints received by them from the US nationals, who had been conned into parting with huge sums of money by persons managing the three call centres at Mira Road.
Seeking to substantiate the manner in which the call personnel allegedly cheated gullible US nationals, the police also produced the scripts that were used to dupe the complainants.
The investigators told the court that the arrested persons made calls through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and made use of “Magic Jack”, a small device which can be shifted from one location to another while in use.
The investigators are, meanwhile, trying to trace the trail of money received from the US nationals. The preliminary investigations have revealed that the ill-gotten money has been routed to Gujarat, where teams of visiting Thane police officials are searches. The investigators have a reason to believe that the accused arrested in connection with the raids on call centres at Mira Road have links with those operating in Gujarat.
In his submission before the court, Thane’s ACP (Crime) Hatote said that the IRS had last year warned the consumers to guard against scam phone calls from thieves intent on stealing their money or their identity. They had told the US nationals that criminals posed as the IRS to trick victims out of their money or personal information.
Quoting the US treasury commissioner, Hatote told the court that those behind the scam had already cheated that already 8 to 9 lakh US citizens to the tune of 26 million dollars. “The scam we have unearthed might a part of the world-wide racket in which lakhs of US citizens have been cheated over the past few years, he said.
In a related development, a battery of lawyers, including Vikram Chavan, Dhananjay Patil, Eknath Phad, Dikule, Sambaji Dere, Veronika Roy, Santosh Bagde, Rahul Zanzane appeared for the arrested accused.
In their respective pleas seeking the release of their clients, the defence lawyers told that the arrested persons were mere employees at the centres, so much so that many of them had not received even their first month’s salary. They told the court that since the investigators had seized all the relevant documents, there was no need for extension of their custody. They also told the court that since their clients had offered to co-operate with the police in the investigations, they be released on bail on condition that they would report to the investigators as and when the latter required them.
It may be recalled that on October 4, the Thane crime branch officials had raided the premises Hari Om IT park, Universal Oursourcing Services, and Oswal House where another Call centre was located.
Among other things, the police had seized as many as 851 hard discs, different high-end servers, DVR, lap Tops, mobile and other electronic gadgets totally valued at around Rs. 1 crore.
Among the main eight arrested included Haider Ali Ayub Mansuri ( 24), Shain alias Hamza Iqubal Balesar (35), Kabir Vardan Ulhas Gupta (26), Arjun Naresh Vasudev, (24), Abdulla Shaukat Zariwalla (22) Johnson Suprian Dantosa (24),Govind Manoj Thakur (28) and Ankit Anil Gupta (19) and 62 others. Subsequently one more persons was arrested, taking the total number of persons taken into custody in connection with the call centre scam to 71.