Goa busts call centre that scammed US nationals, arrests 24 including mastermind
Police said 24 people including the 20-odd people recruited to make phone calls to US citizens to scam them have been arrested
PANAJI: A call centre operating from a private villa in south Goa that had duped US nationals of more than ₹1 crore in the last one month, the Goa police said on Monday.
Superintendent of police (Crime) Rahul Gupta said 24 persons including the alleged mastermind Mayank Kaushik, 38, who along with Nitin Saini and Asish Vajpai, all residents of the Delhi and neighbouring areas, had been arrested. They had employed around 20 others to make calls to people in the US and dupe them.
“The accused, working with a common intent, impersonated loan company agents, staff from Amazon headquarters, bank employees, Paypal, iOS, Zell Pay, Apple Pay, government agencies, and law enforcement officers etc. They induced unsuspecting US citizens to pay large sums in the form of gift cards, bitcoins, and other means under false pretexts, including loan assistance, purchase payments, and technical support,” Gupta said.
He added that the call centre had been operational for the past month and was estimated to have perpetrated fraud amounting to over ₹1 crore.
Those arrested are from New Delhi, Haryana, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Punjab.
“The employees were recruited via an online agency and trained extensively on specific scripts to be used during calls. Their monthly salaries ranged between ₹35,000 and ₹40,000,” Gupta said.
The employees were also arrested because they were clearly aware that what they were doing was against the law, he added.