Servant of fake call centre scam accused held, Rs 2.05 cr seized

The Kapurthala police in coordination with the Ludhiana police conducted a raid at Dhoka Mohalla on Tuesday in connection with the fake call centre racket busted recently. A man was arrested from a rented accommodation and Rs 2.05 crore hawala money seized from his possession.

The Kapurthala team was led by a DSP rank officer and officials of cyber crime cell, Kapurthala. Additional DCP-1 Sameer Verma said that accused Pawan Kumar, a resident of Berasar, Bikaner district (Rajasthan), was arrested.

Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police, Jalandhar Range, Naveen Singla while talking to The Tribune said that role of the abovesaid accused had come to light during the investigation in the fake call centre scam and after the police tracked the location of the accused in Ludhiana, a police party immediately conducted a raid and nabbed him.

“One of the key accused in the case was Harvir Singh, who is a resident of Nurpur Bet, Ludhiana, and who has been running the call centre in Phagwara. Harvir is one who has been managing the affairs of Punjab and managing the illegal money through hawala. Accused Harvir might have links with some foreign-based persons, who are part of the busted racket. His arrest will expose more layers of the racket,” added the DIG.

The latter revealed that Harvir had kept Rs 2.05 crore with his servant Pawan and it could be possible that Harvir himself might be carrying huge cash. The DIG recalled the recent busting of a large-scale cyber fraud racket operating from a rented premises on Palahi Road, Phagwara. This operation led to the arrest of 39 persons and the recovery of 40 laptops, 67 mobile phones and Rs 10 lakh.

The group was involved in duping people in the USA and Canada on the pretext of offering software solutions. The transactions were routed primarily through bitcoin, while hawala channels were also used to transfer illicit funds.

Total number of arrests 39, says DGP

The DGP, Gaurav Yadav, told The Tribune that the police teams had also zeroed-in on a Ludhiana-based hawala operator and raids were being conducted to nab him.

Hawala money was also seized from his possession, taking the total recovered amount to Rs 2.15 crore and the total number of arrests to 39 in this case.

The DGP said that further investigations were on to establish all links in this case to expose the full nexus.