The Thane City police, on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday, raided a call centre located in Wagle Estate area under the Wagle Estate Police station jurisdiction and arrested 16 people for running a fake call centre who duped the citizens from the United States by offering them loans. The police officer from Thane City police informed on Sunday that the action was initiated after the tip-off from the informer.
At least 16 people, including the call centre owners Siddhesh Sudhir Bhaidkar (33), a resident of Vaishali Nagar in Mulund (West) and Saniya Rakesh Jaiswal (26), a resident of Shivaji Nagar in Wagle Estate in Thane, have been arrested in connection to the fraud.
Thane City police inspector Vijay Mutadak said, "On Friday, September 30, we received information from our informer about a fake call centre being operational at Jaydeep Emphasis building opposite Centrum office. R N Solutions, a fake call centre having their office on third-floor office number 302 and fourth-floor office number 414, were raided. We nabbed all the people working there, including three women."
Mutadak informed, "The modus operandi of the accused was that they would contact people in the US and offer them loans for their bank account details and then they would siphon off funds from their accounts. An agent coordinating in the US would collect the money and transfer it to India through 'Hawala' after taking his share from it."
Hawala denotes an illegal transaction of funds by skirting the legal banking channels. Mutadak said, "We detained one juvenile in connection with the offence and later handed over to his parents after completion of legal formalities."
"During the raid, we seized various equipment, gadgets and data from the call centre. The case has been registered against the accused under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC)." A total of thirteen men and three women have been arrested and on Saturday, they were produced before a local magistrate who remanded them in police custody for seven days'' concluded Mutadak.
