Gurugram The police on Tuesday raided a fake call centre in Sector 49, on Sohna Road, and arrested 14 people for allegedly running a fraudulent website and cheating unsuspecting job seekers by offering to “spruce up” their resumes and promise them lucrative jobs with multinational companies. The raid, led by assistant commissioner of police (ACP), cyber crime, was conducted at the call centre’s rented premises in Sector 49.
The police suspect that at least 250 people have been duped in the scam.
The police said two bank accounts, in which about ₹6.5 lakh cash was available, were frozen and ₹1.5 lakh, two laptops, 10 mobile phone and 10 SIM cards, among other equipment, were recovered from their possession.
The police said Rahul Kaushik, a resident of Ashok Vihar, Phase-3, had filed a complaint in July, alleging that he had received a phone call from a woman, who promised to “spruce up” his curriculum vitae (CV) to help him get a job for a fee, but later cheated him.
Shashank Kumar, the deputy commissioner of police (DCP), headquarters, said that the call centre executives, mostly graduates, used to ‘cold call’ people from a database and offer them services that would help them get interviews at IT firms in the city.
“The con men had created two fake websites to which they uploaded CVs and charged a fee, ranging from ₹5,000 to ₹20,000 per person. When the victims would call asking for a refund, they would switch off their mobile phones. The executives were aware of the fraud and were incentivised to lie and stall the victims asking for a refund,” said DCP, adding that all transactions were done via an e-wallet.
{{/usCountry}}“The con men had created two fake websites to which they uploaded CVs and charged a fee, ranging from ₹5,000 to ₹20,000 per person. When the victims would call asking for a refund, they would switch off their mobile phones. The executives were aware of the fraud and were incentivised to lie and stall the victims asking for a refund,” said DCP, adding that all transactions were done via an e-wallet.
{{/usCountry}}The police said the scale of the alleged fraud is yet to be ascertained, adding that hundreds of people could have been cheated.
DCP Kumar said that one of the websites was being run from February 2019 and was taken down recently after several people asked for a refund.
The suspects, Amir Tufail, Mohit Singh, Dinesh Sharma, Lillu, Amit Kumar, Pankaj Kumar, Archana, Shinu Kumar, Vandana, Chanchal, Hema, Priya, Preety Singh and Anjali Singh, were arrested on Tuesday and charged under sections 420 (cheating), 120- B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 66 and 66 D of the Information Technology Act at Cyber Crime police station.