Fake call centre busted in W Delhi, 9 arrested

The accused allegedly duped job aspirants with promises of lucrative positions in a reputed airlines company.

With the arrest of nine people, the Delhi Police claimed to have busted a job racket where a fake call centre was being operated in west Delhi’s Ganesh Nagar. The accused allegedly duped job aspirants with promises of lucrative positions in a reputed airlines company.

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According to police, the arrested accused include Vikas Kumar, 38 — the mastermind of the nexus — and Baljeet Singh, 31 — a telecom service provider employee who issued SIM cards that were fraudulently issued at the store he worked at. The remaining seven are women who worked as tele callers at the fake call centre — Charanjit Saini alias Charu,29; Shalini Bhardwaj, 33; Aarti Kaur,19; Pavleen Kaur,19; Nandini, 24; Pooja Gupta, 21; and Shivani Singh alias Sweta, 21.

Deputy commissioner of police (south) Ankit Chauhan said the arrests were made following investigation into a cheating case registered at the south district’s cyber police station on the complaint of Amarjeet Yadav, who was duped of ₹11,000 in the name of arranging uniform and accessories for his job in the airlines.

Vikas Kumar was first arrested and his interrogation led them to the fake call centre that was raided and seven tele-callers were arrested. Baljeet was the last to be arrested in the case after it was revealed that the SIM cards used in the frauds were supplied by him from the store in Vikaspuri, where he was employed as the second in-charge, the DCP said.

Explaining the gang’s modus operandi, DCP Chauhan said that Vikas and his associates Suraj and Kapil, who are still absconding, created the fake call centre and employed the tele-callers. They would post job offers online.

When job seekers responded to these advertisements through the mobile numbers, the tele-callers, impersonating employees of reputed airline companies, duped them on the pretext of providing jobs.The tele-callers were provided with a drafted script. During these conversations, the victims were induced to make payments through QR codes managed by Kapil, in multiple stages.

“They first tricked victims into paying ₹2,500 as security deposit and then asked for an additional payment ranging between ₹5,000 and ₹8,000 towards the cost of uniforms and shoes for the supposed job. After falsely confirming the job, the accused demanded another amount ranging from ₹10,000 to ₹15,000 under the pretext of opening a salary account. Owing to the petty nature of the amounts, most victims refrained from lodging complaints, which the fraudsters exploited to continue their illegal activities uninterrupted for over one year,” added Chauhan.

A total of 23 electronic devices, 19 SIM cards, QR codes of bank accounts and a Wi-Fi router used in the cyber crimes were recovered from the arrested people. Police also said the centre was being run for over a year.