Fake call centre busted in Gurugram, 3 held

Gurugram, Feb 2 The chief minister's flying squad on Wednesday busted a fake call centre here, an official said.

The call centre was operating in office number 406 on the 4th floor of Tower number 1 of DLF Corporate Greens, Sector 74A here.

It mostly used to cheat the US nationals through gift cards and to generate pop-ups and charged $500 to $2,000 from the victims, the police said.

A laptop, a hard disk, five mobile phones and four pages of scripts used by the call centre employees to make calls to dupe the US nationals were recovered from their possession.

According to the police, a team from the CM flying squad led by DSP Inderjeet Yadav raided the call centre which was running in office number 406 on the 4th floor of Tower No 1 of DLF Corporate Greens Sector 74A in Gurugram following a tip-off.

During the first raid, the police noticed that 12 people including four women were working in office no 406 and were communicating with the US nationals. However, after questioning, the police have let go the youth who were working there.

In connection with the incident, the CM flying wing arrested three persons identified as Gurjant Singh, Salman Sheikh and Manpreet Singh, who was working as team leader and manager.

The owner of the fake call centre Sherry Mann alias Rana, Sajjan, Sahil and Viraz was not found on the spot.

"The call centre has cheated several US citizens on the pretext of providing gift coupons and pop-ups. The youths were employed at the call centres, which were being operated without a license issued by the Department of Telecommunications (DOT)," Yadav said.

"During questioning, the accused revealed that they lured the people on the pretext of lucrative gift coupons online and used to charge nearly $500 to $2,000 per client as a service charge," he added.

"The matter is under investigation... how the accused was operating the fake call centre, it is also a part of an investigation. The involvement of other people cannot also be ruled out," the police officer said.

An FIR under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the IT was registered at the Cyber Crime police station for further investigation.