An illegal call centre was busted by the officials of Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) police officials late on Thursday night, arresting three people for allegedly selling performance enhancement drugs to foreign citizens without any license. The accused have been arrested and booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code, Information Technology Act, Indian Telegraph Act and Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance Act.
According to the BKC Police sources, they had received a tip-off about an illegal call centre operating in Kalina at BKC area, acting on which the premises were raided at around 10pm on Thursday. The raid was underway until the next day's wee hours, in which police asked the call centre owner to produce the license and document.
The owner, identified as Kunal Gupta, 26, was unable to produce any valid documents, following which a police team, along with cyber experts, began searching the place and asked the employees to stop the operations. During the raid, police learnt that Gupta, along with 21 agents were calling foreign citizens, especially USA citizens, with pseudonyms where they sold Viagra, Cialis (ED), Tapentadol, Soma, Xanax and Tramadol drugs without licence.
The police team also seized three hard disks, three mobile phones, one watch, data from the server for analysis along with other relevant documents. It was learnt that the seized drugs were banned under NDPS Act and hence the sections were added. Police also arrested the owner Gupta, Harshad Muzzafar Sayyad, 21, Faiz Hanif Qureshi, 20, who worked as agents. Meanwhile, police are on the lookout for Gupta's business partner, Rahul Jaiswal.
Police said the accused people are suspected to have duped many foreign nationals using the same modus operandi. Moreover, the operators of the fake call centre had not sought permission from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), making it illegal.
