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3 held in Delhi for running fake call centre, selling smartphones at low prices
The accused, identified as Sanjay Panchal, 22, Nikhil Soni, 22, and Kunal, 18, all from Delhi, have more than two dozen associates in various cities across the country and they are yet to be arrested, the police said.
The Delhi Police said Tuesday that they arrested three men, who were running a fake call centre from a house in east Delhi’s Jyoti Nagar and duped people by offering them smartphones at very low prices. The police said the three accused have duped more than 4,000 persons across the country of at least Rs 2 crore in the last two years.
The police recovered 30 cellphones, a computer containing data on people the gang had cheated or had planned to cheat.
The accused, identified as Sanjay Panchal, 22, Nikhil Soni, 22, and Kunal, 18, all from Delhi, have more than two dozen associates in various cities across the country and they are yet to be arrested, the police said.
Deputy commissioner of police (crime) G Ram Gopal Naik said the gang had created a website on the dark web and were running a fake call centre where they had employed young men and women as telecallers.
The DCP said the telecallers would call people, chosen at random, on their cellphones stating that they had been selected in a lucky draw and that they were being offered a smartphone of their choice at a discounted price. The police said that they would offer these smartphones for as little as 70%-80% of the actual price.
“The interested persons were asked to visit the website to select the phone. To win their confidence, the telecallers would tell the victims that the phone would be delivered through the post office and on cash-on-delivery basis,” Naik said.
According to the police, the delivery boys associated with the gang posed as post office employees and delivered the parcels to the clients at their stated addressed, but on the condition that the parcel would not be opened in front of them.
“As the parcels had postal bar codes, the customers never doubted the deal. However, the bar codes were fake. The clients used to find that they had been cheated when they opened the parcels, which were either empty or filled with dummy phones or stones,” he said.
The police said the conmen used to block the contact numbers of the customers to avoid receiving their calls demanding a “cash-back”. They would then deactivate their SIM cards and obtain new SIMs to continue their illegal activities, Naik said.
According to the DCP, the arrests were made after they received information about the fake call centre running from a house in Jyoti Nagar. “We also received a complaint from one Sheikh Asad. He was duped of ₹4,500 in the same manner,” Naik said.