Fake call centre busted in Mulund, 5 held for duping foreign nationals

Senior inspector of Mulund police station Ajay Joshi said that police had received information that some individuals in the Mulund Colony area were duping foreign nationals by pretending to be officials of a US-based bank and offering short term loans.

Based on the tip off, a police team raided a rowhouse on Tuesday and found that a group of persons led by one Sagar Gupta were claiming to be officials of a lending organisation called “Lending point”.The accused were using international e-SIM cards, sending messages or voice mails to US and Canadian nationals to provide immediate loans.

“Of the 200 messages sent, around 100 people would call back and Gupta, trained in US accent, would talk to them. They would be asked to pay 90-100 US dollars in the name of processing fees and eventually more money was taken from them,” Joshi said.

“In order to gain the trust of foreign nationals, loan approval documents were shown, in which each loan case received a unique application number,” said zonal DCP Rakesh Ola.

The police arrested the five persons and seized two laptops, 11 mobile phones, two routers and Rs 76,000 cash from their possession.

An official said that during interrogation they found that four of the five accused had earlier worked at a fraudulent call centre in Surat where they used the same modus operandi. Earlier this month, they decided to replicate the model in Mulund and purchased the row house for Rs 23,000 rent per month.

“ Other details like customer database, e-SIM were provided by the Surat-based call centre owner whom we are now looking for,” officer added. The accused were produced before a local court on Wednesday and remanded to police custody.