KOLKATA: Bidhannagar Police busted another illegal call centre and arrested 20 persons, including two women, for allegedly duping people by compelling them to buy gift cards of Amazon and Paypal for safeguarding their ecommerce accounts from New Town late on Monday night.
The accused persons were produced at the Bidhannagar ACJM Court on Tuesday and four of them have been remanded to police custody for six days.
According to sources, on Monday evening cops of Bidhannagar Cyber Crime police station were tipped off about a fake call centre. Accordingly, a raid was conducted at the call centre located in Shapoorji area. During the raid, police found that a group of youths and women were engaged in telecalling. Their targets were the citizens of the USA.
Police sources informed that the modus operandi was to send emails to those people who had accounts in Amazon or Paypal. In those emails, it was mentioned that the account of the customer was misused and thus it would be suspended.
It was also mentioned that if the customer did not misuse the account, then they should call the number mentioned at the bottom of the email. Out of fear, the citizens used to call on the numbers which were of the fraudsters. After receiving the calls, the accused persons used to compel them to buy gift cards by threatening to suspend the accounts.
During the raid, cops seized 40 computers, 35 smartphones, three hard discs, 10 bank passbooks, two debit cards and Rs 2,10,000 cash from the said fake call centre.