Illegal call centre busted, five arrested
Kolkata: Bidhannagar Police busted an illegal call centre which was being used to cheat USA citizens by threatening and blackmailing. It is suspected that the accused persons have cheated several crores of rupees till now.
According to sources, a few days before Durga Puja officials of Bidhannagar Cyber Crime police station came to know that a man, identified as Tauhid Wahid Khan, was running an illegal call centre somewhere in Sector V. On October 2, police initiated a suo-motu case against him and his associates and started a probe.
During the probe, police raided several hotels in Kolkata and Salt Lake area but failed to locate him.
On Tuesday, police officials came to know from their sources that Tauhid was seen in a hotel located in Park Street area.
Immediately, a police team conducted a raid at a hotel located in Park Street area. The police arrested Tauhid along with a woman identified as Zeenat Robin Joseph of Thane in Maharashtra. During preliminary interrogation the duo stated that a few other of their group are staying in a hotel at Kidderpore. Based on the information, the police team raided a hotel near Fancy Market and arrested three more accused persons, identified as Patel Richesh alias Rehan Khan of Ahmedabad, Sanjay Bhupati of New Delhi and Ashraf Gani of Mumbai.
From there accused persons led the police team to an office located on the first floor at EN-66 which they had rented to run their illegal business. During the search,the police found several mobile phones, hard disks and details of USA citizens along with their e-mail addresses.
While checking the mobile phones, police found several number of USA citizens in dialed numbers, received numbers and blocked numbers list. Police some evidences of they were using international Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) of North America and Europe.
The accused persons used to send information through 'pop up's to USA citizens stating that they have been found involved in some sort of criminal activities which attracts penal sections. Accused persons also used to tell the victims they can avoid legal action by paying some amount of money.
After the victims paid the amount claimed, accused persons used to block their mobile numbers and e-mails. It is suspected that till date several crores of rupees have been cheated.