New Delhi: Two men were arrested for allegedly running a fake call centre and duping American citizens by impersonating themselves as executives of a social media firm and an e-commerce website, providing online support.
The accused have been identified as Prince Sharma (25) and Mukul Dev (25), residents of Sultanpuri, police said.
Seven tele-callers were also apprehended. They were cheating USA-based people on the pretext of solving technical problems and charging hefty amounts for that, they said.
Police received information on Wednesday regarding a fake call centre operating at H-N Block, Krishan Vihar, Sultanpuri, a senior police officer said.
A raid was conducted where a call centre was found operational on the third floor of the building. Several laptops and smartphones were also found at the spot, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer) Harendra Singh said.
Upon checking the laptops, it was found that the fraudsters had installed VPN software for masking their IP address. They were also using remote access applications, Singh said.
They also maintained a record of all the people they had duped. In a notepad application, details like contact numbers, email addresses and the amounts that the victims paid in lieu of their services were found, he added.
In one of the laptops, one Telegram group had a chat regarding their illegal operation, police said.
A case was registered on Thursday and two persons along with seven tele-callers have been arrested, the DCP said.
Sharma and Dev disclosed that they both worked in a call centre in Gurgaon and soon learned the tricks of the trade. Sharma, along with Dev and two others, started a fake call centre setup in south Delhi in 2021 but closed it soon after due to internal disputes, Singh said.
They started another fake centre in 2023 in the Sultanpuri area. The accused also disclosed the involvement of a foreign national, who used to arrange calls for them, police said.
They also used illegal techniques like VOIP calling and bypassing the legal International Long Distance (ILD) gateways, causing wrongful loss to the government exchequer, they added.
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