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Mumbai court grants bail to owners of ‘fake’ call centre targeting US citizens

Although the prosecution argued that the crime was serious, the court concluded it was inappropriate to keep the accused in custody for an extended period.

3 min readMumbaiUpdated: Dec 7, 2025 05:45 PM IST

The court noted that the chargesheet was filed in the case, the investigation against the two is completed, and the evidence is documentary in nature. (File)

Two owners of an alleged fake call centre operating in Vanrai, the northern suburbs of Mumbai, were granted bail by a magistrate court, over two months after their employees were released on bail.

Deepak Mishra and Arpit Sharma were allegedly operating a call centre that called American citizens on the pretext of renewing antivirus subscriptions for their computers and lured them to purchase gift cards.

The police claimed the money was eventually converted to cryptocurrency. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate V R Patil said that the gravity of the offence cannot be the sole ground to deny them bail.

The two men, through their lawyer, Jay K Bharadwaj, submitted that they are directors of a firm named Teamodd Jobs Solutions Private Limited, and it has not been named in the FIR or the chargesheet filed by the police. They said that they were falsely implicated and have no criminal antecedents.

Their plea said that the police had not cited a single victim of the alleged fraud. They also said that since the chargesheet is filed, their further custody is not required.

The prosecution opposed their bail pleas, stating that the offence is a serious one of duping foreign nationals. While the accused had also cited that other co-accused were already granted bail, the prosecution said that this cannot be considered as the ones released are merely employees and not owners like Sharma and Mishra.

The court noted that the chargesheet was filed in the case, the investigation against the two is completed, and the evidence is documentary in nature.

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“Therefore, there is no likelihood of tampering with evidence. The chargesheet does not disclose that any victim has approached the investigating agency. The chargesheet filed by the investigating agency is bulky. The trial of the case will not be concluded within a short period. In the circumstances, it will not be appropriate to keep the accused behind bars for an indefinite period,” the court said.

It said that while others granted bail earlier were employees who were asked to furnish sureties of Rs 1 lakh each, since the two accused are owners of the alleged fake call centre, more stringent conditions must be imposed on them, including sureties of Rs 2 lakh each and surrendering of their passports to the investigating officer and not being able to leave the country without permission of the court.

The Mumbai police arrested at least 10 call centre employees and the owners in September. In October, the employees were granted bail, with the court noting that their role was limited to receiving calls and encouraging citizens to purchase gift cards.