Fake call centre busted in Gurugram; mastermind at large

The Gurugram police in collaboration with the State Crime Bureau busted a fake call centre in Udyog Vihar Phase-4, police said on Sunday.

The call centre used to cheat job aspirants across the country on the pretext of providing jobs, and also charged huge sums of money as registration fees, the police added.

The probe team had detained three women and a man but released them after questioning.

However, the mastermind, identified as Dhananjay, is yet to be arrested. He used to provide the data of job aspirants who were then targeted by the fake call centre. The police have seized computers, CPUs, 3 laptops and other electronic gadgets from there. They have also seized bank accounts that the accused used for their transactions.

According to the police, following a complaint, a police team raided the call centre at plot number 53 of Udyog Vihar Phase-4 on Saturday.

They noticed three women and a man there, while a young man escaped the spot in his after the police team arrived, a police officer said.

“A complaint was received that a fake call centre had cheated several people on the pretext of a job offer in Udyog Vihar. The youths were employed at the call centres, which were being operated without permission,” said Satbir Singh, SHO of Udyog Vihar police station.

“During the questioning, the youth revealed that the call centre was running with the name ‘Shine for Job’. They used to offer lucrative jobs to unemployed youths and charged nearly Rs 7,000 per client as registration fees via bank account provided by the main accused Dhananjay,” he added.

The fake call centre was running from July 20, 2020, and the culprits had earned lakhs by duping people. Also, the call centre did not have any license issued by the Department of Telecommunications.

“The matter is under investigation. The involvement of other people cannot be ruled out,” Singh said.

In connection with the matter, an FIR has been registered at the cybercrime police station for further investigation.

“We are ascertaining more information about the main culprit,” said Subhash Boken, spokesperson of Gurugram police.