Fake call centre targeting US and Canada residents busted, four held | Mumbai news - Hindustan Times
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Fake call centre targeting US and Canada residents busted, four held

ByPayal Gwalani
Jun 09, 2023 12:25 AM IST

Police in Mumbai have arrested four people who were running a fake call centre that would contact small business owners in the US and Canada and threaten to delist their businesses from Google's business listings. To avoid this, the operators would ask for a payment of $99, which they would then wire from an American bank account to an Indian one. The call centre's employees had fake Western names and scripts, and the centre was raided by police after an investigation lasting several months.

MUMBAI: Using a fake Western name, an American accent and introducing themselves as Google employees, 20 young men sitting in Goregaon East would call several American and Canadian small business owners. Their modus operandi was to create fear in them that their businesses would soon be delisted from Google business listings. And to avoid this from happening, they asked them to pay $99 USD ( 8,169).

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On Wednesday night, the police busted this fake call centre by arresting four people who were running this operation and froze their Indian account with 28 lakh.

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The detection team from Vanrai police under the leadership of senior inspector Rampyare Rajbhar raided the centre run at D Definiti building in Jaiprakash Nagar in Goregaon East around 11 pm on Wednesday. They found twenty young men, most of whom were unskilled workers without a graduate degree, operating computers in the establishment run under the name DM Enterprises.

“We had got to know about the call centre working out of this building since January. They would pose as Google employees and call owners of small businesses in US and Canada telling them that their businesses would soon be delisted from the Google business listings and would also ask them to pay a fee of $99 to avoid this from happening,” said PI Rajbhar.

The business owners would then be given an American bank account to deposit the said amount, which the accused would later wire to their Indian accounts, he added.

“They would make the calls and emails between 9pm and 5am to coincide with the working hours of the targeted people. We also checked their business credentials and other documents. They did not have any authorisation from Google to make these calls. Nor did they have any permission to run this business from any authority,” he said.

Just like in a real call centre setting, all employees here also had fake Western names and scripts that they would stick to while interacting with the business owners. The police also found a list of businesses with thorough research on their work areas, locations and other details on the computers found at the call centre. The business owners who had been called, their responses and other such details were also duly filed by the employees of this fake call centre.

Eleven hard discs and a router which was used to make the VOIP calls were seized by the police as evidence of their operation. “We have also frozen their Indian account which had 28 lakh at the time of the raid. While we are investigating the case from all angles, we have arrested four people who were running the operations,” said PI Rajbhar.

The accused and their other associates have been booked for cheating and forgery under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the relevant sections of the Information Technology Act. They were all produced in court on Thursday and were granted police custody.

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