E-Paper
7 more held for duping Chandigarh-based Air Marshal, fake call centre unearthed in West Bengal
The accused had duped the Chandigarh-based former Air Marshal by posing as PSPCL officials on the pretext of helping him get an electricity meter registered for his flat in Mohali
UT Police have arrested seven men for duping a Chandigarh-based former Air Marshal of ₹ 3.6 lakh and unearthed a fake call centre being run by them at Kharagpur, West Bengal.
Police have recovered 22 mobile phones from the accused identified as Neeraj Gupta, 25, and Dheeraj Gupta, 22, from Kolkata and Shehnvaz Ansari, 23; Safiq Ansari alias Guddu, 23; Yusuf Ansari, 20; Tanvir Alam, 23, and Irfan Ansari, 22, from Jharkhand. Neeraj and Dheeraj are brothers
Police had earlier arrested Danna Khan, 55, of Bareilly; and Sonu Kumar Pandey, 29, Anuj Kumar, 26, Govinda Kumar, 21, and Anoop Kumar Tiwari, 32, all from of Bihar.
The accused had duped Ravinder Kumar Dhir of Sector 31 by posing as PSPCL officials on the pretext of helping him get an electricity meter registered for his flat in Mohali .
Ketan Bansal, superintendent of police (SP), cyber crime investigation cell, said, “The two brothers were already committing cyber crimes and started the illegal operation with Govinda and Anoop.”
Bansal said that the brothers specialised in providing special bank accounts to the accused to transfer money they stole. They were also providing them with sim cards obtained using forged documents. They were working with other groups as well and even providing foreign bank accounts to people committing cyber crime and charging hefty commission. Neeraj was working as a cryptocurrency trader and Dheeraj was working at a private firm in Bengaluru.
The accused from Jharkhand had rented an old house in the slum area Kharagpur, West Bengal, to avoid suspicion. They even avoided going out and had a cook stay with them in order to remain isolated.
Police had recently raided their house and recovered 15 phones. As per Bansal, the accused had manipulated Google search results to display their fraudulent numbers first. Bansal said that they have written to Google to take down these results and asked people to use the contact number listed only on official websites.
Police are investigating accounts of the accused and an official said recovery to the tune of crores is expected.
Police added that Dheeraj was the mastermind of this gang. The accused used attend calls on rotation and took tips from Youtube on how to speak in various languages.
