Jharkhand: Police bust fake call centre targetting Americans, twenty arrested

In Dhanbad, Jharkhand, police arrested twenty people in a call centre scam that was targetting American citizens online. The illegal call centre was allegedly duping Americans by asking them to call a helpline number after telling them that someone was deducting money from their accounts. "We got the information that some people were running an illegal call centre. Their activities were suspect. We raided the place and recovered 44 computers, dupe Fraud Online 28 IP phones and 8 modems," said Kishor Kaushal, Senior Superintendent of Police.

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"They used to tell victims that their account balance was being deducted and gave them a helpline number. They also used to access their computers," he said. The police said that the mastermind Vikrant Singh and Jwala Singh used to work at a call centre earlier. "They used to make Rs 35 lakh per month," Kaushal said.

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Rise in call centre frauds

Recently the Delhi police busted a fake international call centre, being operating from West Delhi’s Kirti Nagar in which 30 people were arrested. Another such fraud was caught in West Delhi where fake call centre was busted and 32 people were arrested for being allegedly involved in duping foreign nationals by posing as Canadian police officials. Fifty-five computers, 35 mobile phones and illegal software programs along with other equipment were seized from West Delhi's Moti Nagar where the scam was operational. A similar call centre based crime was found in Bikaner, Rajasthan where six men were arrested in fraud of around 1 crore. The men operated by asking people to transfer money via WhatsApp after telling them that their LIC policy had matured. 

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