Nine accused of running a fake call center were arrested by Gurgaon police for extorting money from foreign nationals

The police arrested nine people from a fake call center on 30 June for deceiving foreign nationals and extracting money from them by presenting themselves as federal police officials. Police seized a laptop and eight computers during the raid.

According to the officers, the call center was operated from a building in DLF Phase 2. The raid was a joint effort of the cyber crime department of Gurgaon and the DLF Phase 2 police station under the supervision of the assistant commissioner after being alerted. The call center manager has failed to show licenses from the Department of Telecommunication (DoT), registration documents, mode of payment, customer agreement, and other related documents in order to run a call center.

The police spokesperson Subhash Boken of Gurgaon said, “The accused threatened to suspend the ‘national identity number’ of potential victims and forced them to purchase gift cards of several companies.” The accused also pretended to be calling from the “federal police department.” The victims were forced to purchase $500-$1000 gift cards. The accused call center was saving the gift card numbers in Whatsapp groups.

An FIR was registered against the accused under sections 384 (extortion), 420 (cheating), and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the penal code and sections 66D (imprisonment and fine), 75 (for committing crime outside India) under IT act.