Fake call centre duping US citizens busted near Gujarat's Rajkot; police arrest four, suspect many others involved

Ahmedabad: A fake call centre being operated from near Rajkot city of Gujarat was busted and four persons were arrested on Wednesday for allegedly duping US citizens through it on the pretext of providing them with a loan at low-interest rates, a police official said. All the accused are 20-year-old and had previous experience of working in call centres, , Rajkot Police, RY Raval, said. “Through this fake call centre, they used to lure US citizens by offering them low-interest loan over phone and then use their Social Security Number to buy gift vouchers, which were encashed in dollars,” he said. The accused — Manoj Sharma, Ratan Karan, Vicky Singh and Sahil Oad — all residents of Ahmedabad, had recently moved to Rajkot to work in the fake call centre opened by an unidentified mastermind near Haripar village on the outskirts of the city, he said. “Sahil and Ratan are still studying in college. These four youths were hired on a monthly salary of Rs 12,000 each. They would earn Rs 3 commission per US dollar that they would acquire by duping US citizens. Using contact details provided to them by the unidentified mastermind, they used to call unsuspecting Americans and offer them a loan at low-interest rates,” Raval said. The accused would convince citizens in sharing their Social Security Number in the name of processing the loan. Using the last four digits of that number, the accused would buy gift vouchers of famous US retail stores online and later encash those vouchers, he added. It is a matter of investigation as to how the accused and their mastermind used to transfer those encashed dollars to India, he said. “These accused are small fry. We suspect that many others are behind this racket,” Raval said, adding that the accused had duped US citizens to the tune of “thousands of dollars”.