Two bogus call centres in western suburbs busted by Crime Branch

Mumbai police arrested 19 for running illegal call centres scamming foreigners with fake Google services and Indians with forex investments.

Mumbai: The Mumbai crime branch on Thursday arrested 19 people for operating two illegal call centres, one of which duped foreign nationals under the pretext of providing services by Google, while the other targeted Indians by convincing them to invest in forex trading. The arrested accused include the two owners of the call centres, located in Andheri and Kandivali, along with five team leaders, a sales manager and people who were hired to make calls.

Two bogus call centres in western suburbs busted by Crime Branch

According to the police, a few days ago, the crime branch’s unit 10 received a tip-off about an illegal call centre operating from Andheri East’s JB Nagar area, running under the name Accentuate Global Technologies Pvt Ltd. A team from the unit then raided the call centre on Thursday.

The accused allegedly called potential victims using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) claiming to be employees of Google, and then told them that their business profiles on Google would expire if they didn’t pay $100-$200 to verify and update them. Some of the foreigners paid the money, said a crime branch official.

An FIR was registered at the MIDC police station against the 13 arrested accused from the call centre under several sections of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the IT Act.

On the same day, unit 11 of the crime branch busted another illegal call centre in Kandivali East, where scammers would dupe Indian nationals by convincing them to invest in forex trading. Six people, including the owner of the call centre, were arrested.

The owner of the call centre did not have an official licence to run a platform dealing with forex trading, said a senior crime branch officer. A case was registered against the accused at the Kandivali police station.

Across both locations, the police seized 12 mobile phones, 22 hard disks, one monitor, two CPUs, one router, one laptop, 12 headphone mics, and important documents about the call centres’ operations and bank accounts.