Ludhiana fake call centre duping UK, US residents busted, 27 held

The five foreign nationals arrested in the case are from African countries. They were identified as M Rediz from Uganda, Peter Richard from Tanzania, Mezdi from Uganda, Candy from Nairobi, and Kelvin from Harare.

Addressing a press conference, Rakesh Agrawal, Ludhiana city police commissioner, said that the suspects had been duping UK and US residents by posing as government officials of these countries and threatening to impose heavy penalties on their victims if they refused to cough up money. He said that the call centre was being operated by four people – Lakhan Abrol, Yatin, Cain Masih and Titus – at a property owned by one Somal Sood.

Agarwal said that investigation into the modus operandi of the suspects has revealed that employees at the call centre approached UK or US-based citizens through an internet-based calling application and posed as Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, United Kingdom officials.

The CP added that the call centre employees induced fear in their victims by telling them that their identity has been used to carry out tax/insurance frauds in their country and a criminal case would be filed against them. When the victims asked them for a remedy, they were told to transfer some amount to a UK-based account. The CP said that half of the conned amount was kept by the UK/USA facilitators, while the remaining was received by the accused through hawala transactions.