As many as 12 individuals were apprehended by the Noida Police from an unauthorized call centre for allegedly scamming foreigners by falsely offering them antivirus software from reputable companies. Following a raid at the call centre, authorities confirmed the seizure of 14 desktops and other related items.
According to a police spokesperson, the arrests were made on Thursday by officials from Police Station Phase-1. Acting on manual intelligence and confidential information, the operation took place at the second-floor office of a building situated in C block of Sector 2.
What did the Police say?
"All these people call foreign citizens and tell them that their company has antivirus software of McAfee and Norton which solves the problems faced by laptops and computers and is available at on offer price of USD 100 (Rs 8,335) to USD 500 (Rs 41,676) for a year," the official said.
What was their modus operandi
"The callers would then send payment links to the foreigners over email and dupe them of their money. Also, this call centre was being run by the accused without any license," the police spokesperson said. Those held have been identified as Pradeep Kumar Pradhan, Aviral Gautam, Rishabh Shukla, Ali Hasan, Anurag Tomar, Harendra Chaudhary, Mohammed Raju, Sandeep Kumar, Deepak Sharma, Saurabh Singh, Saket Priyadarshi, and Shivam Kumar, the police said.
Some of the arrestees are residents of Delhi, while some stay in Ghaziabad, Noida and Greater Noida, the police added. The police said they have lodged an FIR under the Indian Penal Code sections 420 (cheating), 34 (party to criminal conspiracy) and under provisions of the Information Technology Act and further legal proceedings in the case are underway.
(With PTI inputs)
