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‘Fraudulent’ call centre in Salt Lake Sector V raided, 42 people arrested

Cops allegedly find 35 employees placing VoIP calls using masking software tools to various cities in UK, US, Germany and Australia

Snehal Sengupta | Published 07.04.23, 07:14 AM
Representational image.

Representational image.

File photo

Police arrested 42 people from a “fraudulent” call centre in Sector V on Wednesday for allegedly duping foreign nationals posing as health scheme or insurance representatives of companies in the UK and the US.

A team from the Electronics Complex police station raided the call centre, SmartGeek Telecom Pvt Ltd, on the 8th floor of the Merlin Matrix building in DN Block, Sector V, late on Wednesday.

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The team allegedly found 35 employees placing VoIP calls using masking software tools to various cities in the UK, the US, Germany and Australia.

Apart from the 35 employees, the cops also arrested seven “directors and senior management officials” from the call centre.

“The men and women would place calls either posing as government health service scheme officials or representatives of various insurance companies and tell their victims that they had either won a cash prize from an insurance company or offered them lucrative health schemes,” the official said.

They would specifically target the elderly, the officer said.

Once the victims were convinced, they would be asked for their bank account details and to pay a small fee. Then the victims would get a link on their devices and would be asked to click on it.

“Once they clicked the link, the fraudsters would gain remote access to their devices and steal money from their bank accounts,” the officer said.

“This call centre had been running for several years and had duped thousands of people. The employees, too, knew very well that they were cheating people,” the officer said.

Last updated on 07.04.23, 07:14 AM
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