NT Reporter
Panaji
Busting an illegal call centre that was reportedly scamming US citizens, Goa cyber crime police arrested seven individuals during a raid conducted at rented premises at Bainginium in Old Goa on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday.
According to police, the accused were found to be impersonating loan company agents under the name ‘payday’ and cheating innocent citizens of USA by inducing them to pay large sums in the form of gift cards like Sephora, Macy’s, Green Dot Money Pack, Apple Gift Card, Razer Gold and Xbox under the pretext of providing loans and instant money.
Police said further investigation into the case will reveal the total amount of money involved in
the scam.
The arrested accused are Himanshu Singh Chauhan, Mohsin Husain Mansuri (both natives of Gujarat), Avishek Chowdhury, Basudev Chakraborty (natives of West Bengal), Swayam Pandey, Syed Saquib (natives of Jharkhand) and Vilas Utekar, a native of Mumbai, Maharashtra.
Police said the accused were caught red-handed while operating in the illegal call centre. Police have attached six laptops and four mobile phones. A First Information Report (FIR) has been registered against the accused under Section 319(2) read with Section 3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Section 66-D of the Information Technology Act.
The accused were produced before a court and have been remanded to police custody. Police inspector Deepak Pednekar is further investigating into the case.
Police said that following an in-depth technical investigation, the accused were traced by the cyber crime police team led by Pednekar under the supervision of Superintendent of Police Rahul Gupta.
In the last two years, Goa police have busted over nine such fake call centres mostly targeting US citizens.
Referring to the modus operandi in such fake call centres, a senior police officer said that the accused impersonate as customer service representatives of an online shopping site and trick the foreign nationals into paying a certain amount on the pretext of resolving their purchase issues or on the pretext of providing loans, technical support and security up-gradation of systems/devices. Police said the accused induce their victims into making the payment in the form of gift cards.
