B’luru: Fake call center scamming US citizens busted; 11 arrested

Bengaluru: Whitefield Police busted a fake call center that scammed US citizens and arrested 11 persons.

Police said they have arrested Prateek, Rishi Vyas, Syed, Pareek Biren, Karan, Jitiya Kishan, Heta Patel, Bihang, Raj Lal Soni, Vishal Parmar, and Mitesh Gupta – all natives of Gujarat residing in Whitefield in Bengaluru. As many as 132 desktops valued at Rs 1 crore and Rs 15 lakh cash were confiscated during the raid.

According to police, the kingpin of the racket, a resident of California in the USA, is absconding and an operation for his arrest has been launched.

The scam was carried out through a call center registered in Bengaluru that was operating from Silver soft Park under Mahadevapura police station limits, police said.

The kingpin sourced the phone numbers and email ids of US citizens and handed them to the fraudsters. They masqueraded as genuine support center staff and coaxed the targets into transferring money to their account, police added.

Police sources said that money fleeced from the targets was routed through banks in Thailand and was brought to India by the hawala network. The company employed 70 staff and they were paid in cash using the scam money, they said.

It is suspected that the fraudsters had gotten crores of rupees in the scam from their victims and the case will be handed to CID Cyber Cell soon, police sources added.