Two foreigners held in call centre fraud were planning to flee India, say police

Gurugram: A day after 13 persons, including two foreign nationals, were arrested for allegedly duping thousands of people, police said the two foreigners were planning to flee the country

Gurugram: A day after 13 persons, including two foreign nationals, were arrested for allegedly duping thousands of people, police said the two foreigners were planning to flee the country. Police said their visas are valid till March 8.

Gurugram, India-March 02, 2023: (C)Priyanshu Dewan, ACP Cyber Crime and Preet Pal, ACP Crime address a press conference after arrested the 13 people including two foreign-origin Konstantin Phillips (citizen of Latvia), Albert Saribekyan aka Peter (citizen of Uzbekistan), who allegedly cheated by fraudulently investing money in the stock market, in Gurugram, India, on Thursday, 02 March 2023. (Photo by Parveen Kumar/Hindustan Times)(Pic to go with Leena Dhankar's story)

Police said the kingpin of the gang is based in Israel and had sent two of his managers to set up a call centre in India. The suspects were identified as Konstantins Filipous of Latvia and Albert Saribekyan alias Peter of Uzbekistan. They are aides of the main suspect who has been identified but not arrested.

Priyanshu Diwan, assistant commissioner of police (cyber), said the suspects had started the call centre in January last year and started hiring candidates with telemarketing experience. “After giving proper process training, they were given scripts to make calls and dupe victims,” he said.

ACP Diwan said the call centre employees allegedly lured the victims with the promise of high returns on investments in cryptocurrencies and international shares. The victims invested money and roped in other investors to earn commission.

Police said the investors saw money being deposited in their e-wallet accounts, but they were small amounts to gain confidence of the victims. Later, the fraudsters used to block them.

Police have recovered six laptops from the Udyog Vihar call centre.

Preet Pal Sangwan, assistant commissioner of police (crime), said the suspects had duped at least 3,000 victims, including foreign nationals. “Earlier they were operating from Riga in Latvia,” he said.

Sangwan said the employees of the call centre were well aware of the fraud but did not raise an alarm as they were getting good incentives.