Jaipur: Call centers busted for duping Americans of Rs 2.5 crore, 34 arrested

Jaipur: Jaipur Police arrested 34 people including the owner and employees of a call center for running fake call centers at different locations of the city and duping American citizens of about Rs 2.5 crore. Those arrested include key accused Hardik Patel, a Gujarat-based software engineer.

The accused on the pretext of saving tax dues and increasing their credit limits were luring foreign citizens into depositing money in their bank accounts for the past four months. They had set up call centers in Shyam Nagar, Mahesh Nagar, Sodala and Ashok Nagar in Jaipur, said police.

The police conducted a raid at all the four call centers simultaneously on Thursday acting on a tip-off.

The accused men were called up people in the US, China, Hong Kong and Indian states including Rajasthan, Gujarat, Meghalaya, and Tripura.

According to the police, the key accused is 31-year-old Hardik Patel. He is a Gujarat-based software engineer. He hired young people on the monthly salary of up to Rs 15,000 on the eligibility criteria of the British accent. Some of the accused are class 10 and 12 students.

The other main accused persons include Rahul Badal, Bhopa Bhai, Vikesh Rana, and Jaipur resident Gaurav Jangid.

Patel wrote call scripts for the employees. The company bought the phone numbers and other personal details of Americans from a US-based company.

The accused persons used to call the foreign citizens and would offer them to increase their credit limits telling them that their credit score was no sufficient. The victims were also offered loans.

After victim’s approval, they used to deposit a forged cheque of up to Rs 300 $ in his or her bank account.

The victim used to receive an instant message of an increase in credit. After the verification, the conmen used to ask the individual to return the amount to them by using bitcoin, Walmart or iTunes gift card.

By the time the victim could realize he had been duped, the scammers used to transfer the money to some offshore accounts.

Also, the call centers employees lured foreigners by posing as US tax officials also. They used to tell the victims that they have found tax irregularities in their accounts. As a solution, the conmen would ask the victims to pay a specific amount of cash as a tax return to avoid Internal Revenue System (IRS) action.

Accused men confessed that they had collected Rs 60 lakh per month from foreign nationals. The call centers had been set up nearly five months ago.