The Thane police have busted a fake call centre in Maharashtra's Thane city and arrested six persons who allegedly cheated US citizens, an official said on Wednesday.
Attempts were underway to apprehend the main accused in the case who is from Kolkata, the additional commissioner of police (crime), Ashok Morale, said.
Based on a tip-off, the anti-extortion cell of the crime branch raided the premises of the call centre at a mall on Tuesday, he said.
The accused were allegedly operating a call centre from a mall in the city and targeted US citizens, he said.
Investigations were underway to ascertain the extent of the fraud and the number of people who have been cheated, the official said.
The police have seized hard disks, laptops, routers and mobile phones all valued at Rs 1,75,000, he said. The list of seized items by the police also included script used by the employees to communicate with the victims and registers.
According to the police, the accused would allegedly send messages to victims in the US informing them about some transactions done through various applications and ask them to contact the call centre if they had not undertaken such transactions.
The victims would then be asked to download an application and enter a password provided by the accused, following which money would be taken out from their bank accounts, it was stated.
The entire operation was monitored by a group of people from Kolkata, who had data of mobile numbers and targeted them.
The police have arrested Pankaj Jha (32), Prashant Phatak (42), Ram Nimbalkar (35), Mohammad Soheb Mohammad Mustaque Ansari (27), Siraj Hasmi (39) and Kamran Shaikh (26), the official said.
Offences under section 420 (cheating) and other relevant provisions of the IPC have been registered with Kapurbawdi police station, he added.
