Ahmedabad: 15 booked for cheating Americans from 'con call centre'

AHMEDABAD: A case of cheating, breach of trust and cheating by impersonation was registered against 15 people who ran a call centre in Jodhpur area for allegedly duping American citizens.
A complaint was registered by V D Khat, a police sub-inspector with city crime branch. He stated that a fellow police member got information that one Vishal Shah was operating a call centre and was cheating Amercians by promising them solutions to issues relating to an e-commerce company.
He stated that as they entered the office, they found staffers working on laptops and talking on headsets. When investigators opened another office on the same floor, they saw five more persons also working on laptops.
The complainant stated that Vishal Shah, 30, a resident of Jodhpur, was also in the office and on checking his phone and laptop they found a transaction pertaining to a $500 dollar gift card which was sent from the US.
He stated in the complaint that on checking Shah's laptop, they found a software through which he was calling Amercians. Police also found two spreadsheets which had phone numbers and details the American citizens. Police booked Alan Francis, Roshan Varghese, Rahul Shinde, Mohinuddin Saiyed, Shivam Singh, Shailesh Malik, Saurabh Das, Sachin Maykar, Salman Pathan, Mihir Sankhala, Pratik Chauhan and Tabrez Saiyed.
Investigators also registered a complaint against one Kavin, who lives in Mumbai, and one Jony, whose mobile number was found on the laptop. During his interrogation, Shah told police he was operating the call centre from the office for the past 45 days and would hire youngsters by offering them salaries of Rs 20,000 to 25,000 a month. He told the investigator that he use to get phone numbers of Americans from Mumbai and using the software would call them. They would convince people who had problems with issues pertaining to the delivery of products from an e-commerce giant to pay them a certain amount to 'solve the issue'. The amounts they would get ranged from $200 to $500, which the callers would get in the form of a gift card.
While investigators have arrested 13 persons in this case, two are at large.