A well-oiled fake call centre in Whitefield busted, 6 held

NT Correspondent
Bengaluru

At least six people have been arrested by Whitefield police following a raid on a fake call centre on Friday. Items worth Rs 2 crore have been confiscated by the police, including three luxury vehicles, two school buses, six iPhones, 127 desktop computers, four laptops, 150 headphones, ten internal hard drives, and Rs 18 lakh in cash, police said.

The city police raided Ethical Info Co Pvt Ltd office on the first floor of the Gayathri Tech Park in Whitefield to bust the Bengaluru- based firm. The organisation, according to the Whitefield police, was operating a well-organized fake cyber call centre that used the internet and phone calls to swindle people, primarily from abroad. Explaining the modus operandi of the fraudsters, police said the company’s staff used to call their victims, earn their confidence, and then access information such as bank account numbers to hack into them and steal money.

Deputy Commissioner of Police, Whitefield Division, S Girish said, “The accused used to obtain users’ data from e-commerce sites fraudulently. Employees were divided into three groups, call takers, bankers and closers,” he said.“The job of the call takers was to call the US citizens and make them believe that there had been some suspicious transaction in their bank accounts. People who believed those calls were transferred to bankers, who used to give solutions and demand them to transfer money as charges. The third set of employees used to guide the people to transfer the money into the company’s bank accounts,” he said.

Accused used to get their money transferred into bank accounts in Thailand and Hong Kong, and the money was later brought to the country through hawala channels. The accused had employed around 70 people for the job. Prima facie, police are claiming that employees knew about the fraud and hence they have been detained in the case.

Six people based out of Gujarat have been detained as a result of the raid. The police had sought a search warrant from a judge based on a tip. Personnel from two police stations in the Whitefield division were involved in the operations.

Mahadevapura police reported the seizure of 132 desktops worth Rs 1 crore and Rs 15 lakh in cash, while the Whitefield police have seized 127 desktops, four laptops, 150 headphones, six internal hard disks, six Apple phones, three expensive cars and two school vans — all totally worth Rs 2 crore apart from Rs 18 lakh in cash. Further investigations are underway, police said.