Ludhiana: Key accused in call centre scam nabbed from Gujarat

Nikhil Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, July 16

Taking the investigation into the fake call centre scam forward, the Ludhiana police have arrested accused Naman Sukhadiya, a vital link in the case, following a raid in Surat, Gujarat.

Naman was instrumental in obtaining fake foreign bank accounts and credit cards that were used to deposit the proceeds of crime and further transfer it to India through hawala channels or cryptocurrency.

He was in touch with the other accused Dhruv, Lakhan, Yatin etc. through WhatsApp groups that they used to share details of victims, foreign accounts, hawala transactions and other operational details.

Foreign nationals targeted

• Accused posing as tax/insurance authorities used to call citizens of UK, US, Canada, etc. and ask them to transfer money to local accounts, which was further sent to India through hawala or cryptocurrency
• The racket was busted on June 30 following a raid on a call centre on Pakhowal road. So far, Rs39 lakh in cash and Rs50 lakh in Bitcoin have been seized from 37 accused
• Businessman Somal Sood, who owned the building, was among those arrested. He, using his links with cops and politicians, sheltered accused and took his cut

Once the victim fell into his trap, Naman used to provide the details of the foreign accounts in which the money was to be transferred after committing the fraud. Naman also helped the other accused obtain foreign WhatsApp numbers that were used to carry out the fraud, said Police Commissioner Rakesh Agrawal.

The cops have a challenging task of listening to over 10 lakh recorded calls as the victims belonged to foreign countries such as the UK, USA, Canada and no one had so far approached the police.

The accused had access to a robotic calls software, which they used to make 30,000 calls at once. Those falling prey were transferred by the software to fake call centres and connected to persons in India.

“The police need at least some complainants to make a strong case against the accused. We have seized record of more than 10 lakh calls from the software. All calls are being screened to identify the victims,” said a senior police official probing the scam.

“The Ludhiana police will write to the Punjab Police, which through the Home Department will communicate with the Ministry of External Affairs to reach out to the countries to get written statements of the victims. We will do this once we corroborate the technical and physical evidence seized here,” said an officer.

Additional DCP Crime Rupinder Kaur Bhatti, who busted the racket, said having foreign complainants on record would surely boost the probe, but the police had enough technical and physical evidence to ensure early conviction of the accused.

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