Fake call centre duping American citizens busted, nine arrested

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, August 23

The Ludhiana Police Commissionerate claimed to have busted a fake call centre and arrested nine persons.

According to the police, the fake call centre, Success Solutions Care, was being run in Shaheed Bhagat Singh (SBS) Nagar on Dhandra Road here. The suspects used to target only US citizens. Since the suspects had data of US citizens, they would call them and would pose as America-based software engineers and then on the pretext of resolving their issues in laptops and computers, they used to send virus to their computer systems and afterwards take huge money from them to remove the same.

The police recovered four laptops, 24 CPUs and six headphones from the call centre during a raid conducted yesterday by SHO, Sadar police station, Inspector Harshveer Singh, and his team.

Modus operandi

Since the suspects had data of US citizens, they would call them and would pose as America-based software engineers and then on the pretext of resolving their issues in laptops and computers, they used to send virus to their computer systems and afterwards take huge money from the victims to remove the same.

The suspects have been identified as Ratinder Singh, alias Rikk, alias Tinu, of Model House, Bebe Nanaki Dugri Road, Sukhpreet Singh of New Hargobind Nagar, Sumant Mahajan of Janakpuri, Mayank Joshi of Durgapuri, Haibowal, Aditya Chauhan of Pratap Singh Wala, Ishant Singh Rana of Daba Lohara Road, Dilpreet Singh of New Janta Nagar, Sandeep Kumar of Guru Arjan Dev Nagar and Sameer Beri of Golf Link, Hambran Road. The suspects are highly professional and they speak English fluently with good accent. Ratinder is the kingpin of the racket.

Sources said now, the police had launched further probe in the case to inquire about number of US citizens duped and money collected from them. The police suspected that the gang had connection with some other suspects staying in other states and the US as well and they would be identified. The police also have suspicion that they might had been running similar call centres in other cities or states with the help of their other accomplices.

A case under Sections 319(2), 318(4) and 61(2) of the BNS and Sections 66C and 66D of the IT Act was registered against the suspects at the Sadar police station on Thursday.

Int’l call centre busted, 29 nabbed in 2023

The Ludhiana police had busted a fake international call centre in July 2023 and arrested 29 persons, including two women, who used to allegedly dupe US citizens by introducing themselves as “technical service providers from tech giants, including Microsoft and Apple.” The call centre was being operated from Daad village of Ludhiana. The nabbed suspects were from various states, including Meghalaya, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Delhi and Punjab.