12,000 USA, UK and Australia citizens duped of RS 25 crore by Ajmer call center, 8 arrested
The accused men would pose as taxation authorities and tell their victims that they had detected tax evasion. For not initiating a legal action, the victims were asked to pay bribes. According to the police, the call center duped 12,000 foreigners of Rs 25 crore.
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Jaipur: Ajmer police in Rajasthan busted a bogus call center and arrested its owner and seven employees who duped citizens of Australia, the UK and the USA after threatening the victims with arrests for tax evasion.
The accused men would pose as taxation authorities and tell their victims that they had detected tax evasion. For not initiating a legal action, the victims were asked to pay bribes. According to the police, the call center duped 12,000 foreigners of Rs 25 crore.
While five people were arrested from Ajmer, three others were held from Mumbai, Punjab and Gujarat.
“They would call people in Australia, America and England and introduce themselves as taxation officials. The call center employees accused people of evading taxes and threaten them that they would be arrested. When people asked them the way out, they would make them buy cryptocurrency and transfer it to their own accounts,” said a police officer.
In eight months, the call center employees defrauded nearly 12,000 foreigners of at least Rs 25 crore, the officer said.
Ajmer police range IG, Biju Jorge Joseph said that the searches at the call center were carried out on Tuesday.
Those arrested include call center owner and the kingpin of the gang – Rahulraj Varma, a resident of Bihar. Other gang members are Naimudin Kureshi, Tejdeep Singh, Ketan Kumar and Rohit Kumar .
The police seized two laptops, five computers, six mobile phones, two routers and other equipment.
“The Ajmer-based call center used to buy data from other call centers being operated in Bihar and Maharashtra. Using the mobile number, they would call up people in Australia, America and England randomly and threaten them with legal action. The victims would buy bitcoin to avoid arrests for tax evasion and transfer them to the gang’s accounts. The gang members used to convert the cryptocurrency into money and transfer it to their own bank accounts,” said the officer.
