The Delhi Police has busted two fake call centres and arrested 30 people who allegedly duped UK-based residents by posing as personnel of the revenue and customs department, officials said on Thursday.
The people at the fake call centres would instil fear among the foreign nationals after calling them through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and claiming that criminal cases have been filed against them for tax dues, they said.
When the victims asked for a remedy, they would then tell them to transfer money in UK-based accounts, the police said.
The caller centres were being operated by a man named Parvinder Singh along with his three associates Paramjeet Singh, Gagandeep Singh and Manthan Arora, who were also arrested along with six other women, they said.
They duped UK-based citizens by posing as personnel from UK's Department of Justice and also from Revenue and Customs department, police said.
Senior police official Rajiv Ranjan Singh said on June 18, following a tip off, a raid was conducted and 30 people were apprehended from the fake call centre in Rohini.
When Parvinder Singh and his associates were interrogated, they disclosed that they had also been operating another call centre, that also in Rohini, he said.
During interrogation, Parvinder told the police that he had purchased the data of customers through internet for Rs 5 lakh and provided a script to the callers who called the UK-based residents through VOIP, the officer said.
The accused also disclosed that they had purchased a number of luxurious cars, bikes, high-end mobile phones, properties in Delhi and nearby areas through the proceeds of the crime, he said.
Elaborating on the modus operandi, the officer said the callers usually instilled fear in the victims by telling them that a criminal case had been filed against them for their tax dues.
When the victim asked them for a remedy, they told them to transfer an amount into a UK-based account by providing the account number of facilitators in UK, he said. Half of the transferred amount was kept by the facilitators and the remaining half was transferred to the accused here via hawala or Bitcoins.
Over 10 laptops, 46 mobile phones and Rs 17,50,000 cash have been seized along with an SUV car, cheque books, debit cards and other electronic devices from the fake call centres, police said.
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