By Bagish Jha May 23, 2018, 09.59 AM IST
GURUGRAM: Among the thousands
of phone and internet calls that keep the US and Gurgaon connected for
business, scores of sham ones went out daily from an office in a business park
set up in the city by techies.
The call centre was bogus but nothing else was —
the employees, mostly young boys and girls in their mid-20s and with a degree
of fluency in spoken English, were chosen carefully and accent-trained to sound
legitimate. An
office was set up in Info City 2, near the Hero Moto Corp plant, two floors
were taken on lease, work stations installed and the trained employees put on
the job. A website was set up too, pitching the company as and end-to-end IT
services consultancy. It named a series of MNCs, including two telecom giants
and an energy major, as clients.
The employees were given a set of American
numbers to call. But not to pitch for business or on behalf of clients. These
youngsters had impersonate US IRS officials, concoct a tax evasion story and
put the fear of law in the minds of those they were speaking to. Over a period
of around eight months, this operation went on smoothly, bringing in, it is
suspected, thousands of dollars in swindled money from Americans who got
bullied into coughing up money.
The call centre, run in the name of Alethe
Consulting Private Limited, was busted late on Monday when police conducted a
raid at the Sector 33 office. The raid, which lasted well into Tuesday morning,
ended with the arrest of three people associated with the firm, two of whom are
BTech graduates. Police are currently assessing the overall quantum of money
swindled by the company, and examining bank accounts of the three arrested men.
They have also identified more suspects, who are yet to be arrested. One of
those still free is likely the mastermind of the operation.
According to the company’s LinkedIn profile, it
has 65 employees, of whom, 40 were present during the raid.
“They used to pose as IRS officials, and issue
threats to random people, alleging they had discovered the victims were evading
tax, and forcing them to pay up,” said DCP (crime) Sumit Kuhar, adding they had
been tipped off by local informers about the fake call centre, upon which, a
joint team of Palam Vihar and Sadar police stations conducted the raid. Kuhar
said the call centre was involved in a slew of violations, and promised to
crack down on all such operations in Gurgaon.
The three men arrested, all in their late 20’s, are
engineering graduates from reputed institutes. They are Vatsal Soni and
Siddarth Sachdani from Ahmedabad (both BTech holders) and Brijesh Yadav of
Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh. They were booked under Section 66D (cheating by
personation by using computer resource) of the IT Act, and sections 419
(cheating by personation), 420 (cheating) and 34 (common intention) of IPC. The
suspects were produced before a court that sent them
into three-day remand.
Of the three, Vatsal ran the call centre, while Siddarth managed employees and
Brijesh provided tech support. They also seized the company servers and
computers. The employees were detained, but released after questioning.
A police source said several such call centres were involved in stealing
sensitive customer data and selling it to other companies.
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