Gurugram cops bust fake call centre, owner among 4 held

Sanjay Yadav

Gurugram, July 5

The Gurugram cybercrime police busted a fake call centre being run from a house in Sector 55 area and arrested four persons, including its owner, on Friday.

The accused were allegedly duping foreign nationals on the pretext of online booking of tickets for concerts, and rugby and football matches. The police also recovered four laptops, four headphones and four chargers from their possession.

Duped foreigners on pretext of booking sports, concert tickets

• The accused placed advertisements on Google for booking online tickets for concerts, and football and rugby matches.
• When people called them on their toll-free number, the accused would tell them that there was a problem with their debit/credit card and trick them into buying Walmart gift cards.
• They would ask victims for their gift card numbers and get these redeemed through their Chinese associates via Telegram. They would then get the defrauded money deposited in their crypto wallets.

According to the police, they had received a tip-off that a fake call centre was being run in house number 367 in Sector 55. Subsequently, a team of the cybercrime east police station

raided the house while the four men were busy making calls. The accused could not show any valid OSP (Other Service Providers’) licences from the Department of Telecommunications or any other agreement or MoU related to their work.

The arrested accused were identified as fake call centre owner Sonu, a resident of Bhati Kalan Fatehpur Beri in Delhi; and his team members — Akash Chauhan (alias Sky), a native of Khurja in Bulandshahar district of UP; Suraj Kumar Bharti, a native of Lakhi Sarai in Bihar; and Seemant Raghav, a resident of Ghitorni in Delhi.

An FIR was registered against the accused at the cybercrime east police station under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the IT Act.

During interrogation, it was revealed that the accused placed advertisements on Google for booking tickets for concerts, football and rugby matches abroad. When people called them on their toll-free number, the accused would tell them that there was a problem with their debit/credit card and trick them into buying Walmart gift cards.

“They would ask victims for their gift card numbers and get these redeemed through their Chinese associates via Telegram. They would get the defrauded money deposited in their crypto wallets,” said ACP (cyber) Priyanshu Dewan.

It was further revealed that Sonu gave 50 per cent profit share to his partner Akash Chauhan and 30 per cent share to his employees Suraj and Seemant for calling victims. He would also give them incentives to encourage them to dupe as many people as possible, the ACP added.