Kolkata's Fake Call Centre Racket Exposed, 19 Arrested in Crackdown

Kolkata (The Uttam Hindu): Kolkata Police have busted a major call centre racket in the state capital after arresting 19 people, said officials on Tuesday. The arrests were made late Monday night.

Sources from the city police said the racket involved luring the potential first targets and giving them an offer to download and install an anti-malware app on their respective devices. Once the target had fallen into that trap, the entire data on the device where that particular app was downloaded was compromised and through that many of the victims lost huge amounts of money from their banks. City police sources said that on the basis of a specific complaint from one such victim, the detectives of the city police started an investigation into the matter. Finally, they tracked that the entire fraud was operating from a residential flat based out of Ballygunge in South Kolkata.

Accordingly, a team of investigating officials from the city police conducted a sudden raid at the residence on Monday night and arrested as many as 19 people in this connection. The investigating officials also seized several laptops, mobiles and other electronic gadgets from the flat. The flat has already been sealed, said the officials.

Sources said the investigating officials believe that the 19 persons arrested in this connection were just employees in that fake call centre and the main brain or brains behind the racket are operating from behind the curtain and at some other place. The arrested persons are currently being interrogated by the investigating official to get information to reach out to the kingpins of the racket. It is learnt that the targets of the racket were not just from India but also from abroad. The arrested persons will be presented to a lower court in the city later in the day and the public prosecutor will seek their police custody. More details were awaited on the case.