Gujarat: Owners of call centre that ‘duped’ Americans sent to police custody

“Prashant had started the call centre sometime in January with Sohel as partner. Rest were employed by the duo. They used to dupe American citizens by taking their bank details on the pretext of providing them loans,” said a police officer, adding that Prashant had good experience in working with call centres.

Police further said that the accused would get data of the US citizens, looking for bank loans, from several agents. The callers would contact them through Internet and offer them easy loans with lesser interest rates. They would ask for the victims’ user ID and password for net banking and transfer a meager amount in order to win their confidence. In many cases the accused used to send images of forged cheques to the victims.

“Computers and laptops seized from the spot by Ellisbridge police are being scrutinised to ascertain the amount of fraud and other details,” said an officer.

In the past as well, Ahmedabad city police and Detection of Crime Branch have busted more than a dozen such call centres and arrested over 30 people who had duped the US citizens.