Police bust fake call centre in Sambhaji Nagar, 116 booked for duping foreign nationals

The minor girl was sent to remand home.

Apart from 116, the police have detained one more accused native of Kolkata who allegedly provided the data of the foreign citizens to the accused, said deputy commissioner of police, Prashant Swami.

According to police, the raid was conducted based on the intelligence gathered by MIDC CIDCO police.

Around 150 police personnel participated in the 12-hour raid at a three-storey building in the Chikalthana MIDC area where the call centre operated under the name KS Enterprises.

The call centre was being run secretly for around four months where people, mostly from Northeastern states, were working.

The police have seized several laptops, Mobile phones and documents from the centre.

The accused who were remanded in police custody were identified as Abdul Farooque Mukadam Shah alias Farooque, Bhavesh Choudhari, Bhavik Patel, Satish Lade, Valay Vyas, and Ajay Thakur.

Farooque is the main accused and a local resident who allegedly ran the call centre with the help of other accused.

The accused were earlier running the call centres in Gujarat but once police raided there, they left and set up another call centre in Sambhaji Nagar a few months ago.

According to police, during further interrogation, they learnt that some of the accused were running the call centre in Goa as well.

Explaining their modus operandi, police said that the one person would call and after introducing him as a government official would connect another employee to speak to a “senior officer” who would then threaten to arrest for not paying taxes.

The third caller would settle the deal asking the victims to pay money through crypto or force them to buy gift cards in US dollars.

The FIR has been registered in MIDC Cidco police station under the relevant sections of the BNS and IT act against the accused and further investigation is going on.

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