Rabale police arrested ten persons and busted a fake call centre operating from the 29th floor of a building in Airoli. The police have also seized electronic gadgets worth Rs 1.74 lakh from them that were allegedly being used to cheat US nationals.
Acting on a tip-off, the Rabale police carried out a raid at a flat located on the 29th floor of Shiv Shankar Heights at sector 20B in Airoli in the early morning of Thursday. During the raid, police found that around 10 persons were operating a fake call centre and calling illegally to US nationals and cheating them.
Cyber experts Pushkar Zantye and Sushant Jadhav provided technical support during the raid.
Police said that they were operating the fake call centre in the name of Amazon Customer Service. “They used to make calls through Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) using the software. They used to contact US nationals through calls or emails, saying that their computers and mobiles were infected with viruses/malware. In order to remove the virus, they asked for money in Dollars,” said a police official from Rabale police station. He added that they were running the call centre without a license and documents.
The arrested were identified as Sushil Pandey, Vijay Gehlot, Siraj Sheikh, Dharmesh Saliyan, Mehtab Syed, Huneed Kothari, Saurabh Dubey, Naushad Shaikh, Suraj Singh and Asif Shaikh.
According to police, the call center was being run in partnership with Pandey, Saliyan and Gehlot. “The setup of the call center was set up by Sheikh,” said the official.
He added that they seized 10 laptops, 8 mobile phones, routers and headphones worth Rs 1.74 lakhs from them.
A case of cheating has been registered at Rabale police station under sections 419, 420, 465, 467, 471 and 34 of IPC and 66 b, 66c, and 66d of the IT Act 2008 (Amended) and 72 A and 75 of the IT Act including section 25 C of the Indian Telegram Act.
