MAPUSA
Calangute Police have arrested five persons from a fake call centre that was allegedly duping US citizens by persuading them to pay on the pretext of settling illegal acts “committed” by them in their country.
The police have seized 30 laptops including a server laptop, 25 laptop chargers, 24 headphones, two routers along with an adapter, mobile phones all worth around Rs 20 lakh that were used to run the fake call centre.
Acting on specific information, police raided the call centre set up in a hotel at Gauravaddo, Calangute and found seven persons including two women who were working on the spot.
Those arrested include people from Gujarat, Maharashtra, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and New Delhi. Most of them were in their early 20s.
The call centre was operational for the last two weeks from a hotel at Gauravaddo, Calangute, police informed.
The estimated money conned from the American citizens by the call centre so far is being investigated.
Police informed that personal details of the American citizens were sourced through illegal means by using computer resources and virtual private networks (VPN).
“The accused persons would interact with the American citizens over the internet by impersonating as officials of law enforcement authority of the US. They convinced the victims that they have done illegal acts like fraud, indulged in drug peddling or defaulted in paying tax and to settle the illegal acts with the US government the victims, were asked to cough up the money in the form of electronic payment,” Calangtue PI, Nolasco Raposo said.
“The payment was made either by gift card, target card or google pay electronically through Paxful app/bitcoin/crypto wallet which was then withdrawn in Indian currency at Ahmedabad, Gujarat thus cheating the US citizens,” the officer added.
He said five persons, including the mastermind behind the con job, have been arrested and investigations are on.
An FIR has been lodged under the Indian Penal Code sections 419 (impersonation), 420 (cheating) and 384 (extortion) and section 66-C and 66-D of the IT Act.
“The two women who were part of the gang have not been arrested as they have joined the investigation,” said SP Shobit Saxena.
