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Delhi police special cell arrests 4 for cheating US citizens of over $20 million
The special cell commissioner said that one of the suspects, Parth Armarkar (28), a resident of Ahmedabad in Gujarat, impersonated himself as the former acting administrator of the DEA and the director of Interpol in Washington to carry out the scam
Delhi Police special cell, in coordination with other national and international enforcement agencies on Friday and Saturday, conducted multiple raids and arrested four accused from different locations in India for cheating US citizens of millions of dollars, officials said.
According to officials, the arrested accused allegedly cheated several US citizens of more than 20 million dollars. They posed posing themselves as Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents and operated out of Uganda and India.
Commissioner of police (special cell) HGS Dhaliwal said that in December 2022, the US security service Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)– office of the Legal Attaché, New Delhi, and Delhi Police collaborated to affect the arrest the four subjects, which was part of an international operation resulting in simultaneous arrests and searches of call centre fraud subjects in the US, Canada and India.
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“From the last few days, the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of special cell was receiving information from the FBI through Interpol about some international cyber criminals. As per the information, the cyber criminals with the aid and assistance of co-conspirators based in India, the USA and Uganda, were running call centres. They posed as employees of the US internal revenue service/social security administration, DEA and other US agencies,” he said.
The special cell commissioner said that one of the suspects, Parth Armarkar (28), a resident of Ahmedabad in Gujarat, impersonated himself as the former acting administrator of the DEA and the director of Interpol in Washington to carry out the scam.
“Armarkar defrauded victims for over 6 million USD through call centres operating in Uganda. He is an Indian national and visits India occasionally. The FBI and Delhi Police shared technical evidence and information on Armarkar which led Delhi Police to identify his whereabouts in Ahmedabad (Gujarat). Our team finally nabbed him from Ahmedabad,” said Dhaliwal.
Dhaliwal said that Armarkar’s boss Vatsal Mehta (29), who was on the run, was also arrested from Ahmedabad.
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“Further, two more accused – Deepak Arora (45) of Janakpuri (Delhi) and Prashant Kumar (45) of Dabri (Delhi) – who were the main co-conspirators, were arrested from Uttarakhand. They were on the FBI’s radar for a long time. As part of coordinated action, the FBI has interviewed over 50 victims so far and also collected evidence of fraud for more than 20 million USD, which will be produced in court as per the procedure. Two victims from the US have also been examined through video calls by IFSO,” he said.
The special cell commissioner added that all the arrested accused were produced in Patiala House court on Saturday, from where the police got their five days’ police remand.
