Four persons have been arrested from a garment-cum-tailoring shop near the Kaikhali crossing off VIP Road for allegedly duping hundreds of people by promising lucrative returns and a one-time payment for the installation of cellphone towers on rooftops or empty plots.
A senior officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said their detective department had received a specific tip-off that a group were placing calls across the state and duping people posing as officials of cellphone network providers.
Based on this information, a team from the detective department and officers from the cyber crime police station in Salt Lake raided the shop.
The four were arrested for allegedly duping people by promising high returns and a one-time yearly rent in return for space to install cellular network towers.
“Once a victim agreed to let out their rooftop or piece of land on rent for setting up cellphone towers, they would take huge sums of money from them by listing a host of fees. After they got the payment from the victims they would go incommunicado,” said a senior officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate.
The callers also allegedly placed international calls by posing as representatives of software majors. They would dupe people abroad by promising them technical support or by telling them that their Internet-enabled devices were under a virus attack.
Another officer said they were surprised that such a small group of individuals was operating a “mini call centre”.
“They were using the shop as a front so that they could avoid any suspicion from our surveillance teams,” said the officer.
A senior officer of the commissionerate’s detective department said they were observing a shift in the modus operandi of these call centres.
While earlier these would operate out of offices, now call centres are being operated from inside residential buildings and housing complexes in order to avoid suspicion.
“They were operating out of a shop in a busy market area. Like them, we are also constantly changing tactics so that these illegal call centres can be weeded out,” said the officer.
The cops have identified the four as Plabon Banerjee, 35, Rima Pramanick, 33, Dipti Saha Biswas, 39, and Rakhi Paik, 24.
They were produced before a Barasat court that sent them to three-day police custody.
