Mira Road fake call centre: 2 more arrested

Mohammed Marzuki, 34, owned the call centre and Jimmy Patni, 33, helped him register the domain’s name

Two years after busting the fake call centre racket, the Thane crime branch arrested two people. Mohammed Ali Abdulla Marzuki, 34, owned the call centre and Jimmy Joy Patni, 33, helped him register the domain’s name. The accused were in touched with the key accused, Sagar Thakkar, 24.

Sagar Thakkar, alias Shaggy, the alleged mastermind of the fake call centre. (HT Photo)

A police officer from Thane crime branch said, “We arrested the two accused who have helped run the fake call centre. The accused have also helped the main accused with documents to open bank accounts to transfer the cheated money. While we were going through the bank account, we found the accused’s names. We got a tip-off that they were to come to Thane. We laid a trap and arrested them.”

On October 4, 2016, the Thane crime branch and with the Thane rural police raided seven call centres at Mira Road. The police arrested more than 75 people, including floor managers, accountants and even an investor. At that time it was found that fake Call center employees targeted loan defaulters in the US by posing as officials from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and department of treasury.

They extorted millions of dollars by threatening these citizens with tax fraud or tax evasion. Thakkar had roped in his childhood friends to form a network of floor managers, who ran the multi-million dollar con across cities, officials said.

IT experts and those who could operate phone lines were hired. Employees would either buy or use software to obtain information from the white pages in America, which is similar to the yellow pages in India. The accused duped more than 6500 people to over ₹500 crore.