Fake call centre duping US citizens busted in Delhi, 4 held
With the arrest of four men, the Delhi Police’s Crime Branch has busted a fake call centre running under the garb of ‘travel agency’ and cheating US citizens on the pretext of providing cheap air fares, an officer said on Tuesday.
IANS
Dec 19, 2023 07:09
0
New Delhi, Dec 19 (IANS) With the arrest of four men, the Delhi Police’s Crime Branch has busted a fake call centre running under the garb of ‘travel agency’ and cheating US citizens on the pretext of providing cheap air fares, an officer said on Tuesday.
The accused were identified as Shantnu (39), Swapan (36), Virender (38) and Pankaj (37). Beside this, 20 support staff consisting of telecallers, IT experts, change callers, team leader and call quality experts were bound down.
Police have also seized 18 computers, four mobile phones, one laptop, one router and other articles used in the commission of the crime.
The Special Commissioner of Police, (Crime), Ravindra Singh Yadav, said that a specific input was received regarding a fake international call centre running in Netaji Subhash Place, Pitampura under the garb of a travel agency named Travel Vault, where US citizens were being cheated on the pretext of providing cheap air fares.
The Special CP said a raid was conducted and the four main accused along with their 20 support staff were found along with their laptops and other equipment.
On interrogation, it was revealed that one of their associates named Rohit Dass is in the US and they had developed a travel website. By investing in Google ad-words, they managed to get their website displayed on top during Google searches.
“Whenever any traveller made any enquiry from US airlines about fares and travel dates, such calls got diverted to their website. Then by using fake toll-free numbers through their tele-callers, they lured the victims on the promise of cheap air fares and procured all their personal details (credit card/gift card),” said the Special CP.
While issuing the tickets to the victim, they managed to split the payment of the air fare and extra $100 to $200 per traveler, were deducted from the accounts of the victim.
“The cheated amount immediately got transferred to the account of the US-based co-accused and from there the payment got disbursed to all the associates. They frequently used to change the fake toll-free numbers whenever Google marked and blocked them,” the Special CP added.
--IANS
ssh/rad
