Twenty-one employees, including two “directors”, of a call centre in Sector V were arrested for alleged fraud on Thursday night.
They were allegedly duping British citizens by posing as representatives of software majors and anti-virus companies.
The Bidhannagar police commissioner, Gaurav Sharma, said the raid was part of a continuous drive against illegal call centres.
“We want to root out these call centres,” Sharma told The Telegraph on Thursday.
A senior officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said teams from Salt Lake cyber crime police station conducted the raid at the call centre at Globsyn Crystals Towers in Sector V following a tip-off.
The police identified the “directors” as Parag Kundu, 36, from Hatiara in Rajarhat, and Sanjay Chandra Das, 41, from Topsia.
An investigating officer said the employees made international calls through VoIP, which makes such calls difficult to trace by law enforcement agencies.
The employees would pose as members of technical support teams of software companies, he said.
“The callers would tell the victims that they were under a virus attack and would offer to repair the operating systems for a small fee and send a link,” said the officer.
“Once a victim clicked on the link, the caller got remote access to his or her computer and would make transactions from the person’s e-wallet and account,” he said.
Salt Lake police have started a crackdown on dubious call centres. More than 20 call centres that were allegedly been involved in duping people using similar tactics have been shut down over the past four months.
