Four including kingpin held at con call centre in Naroda

AHMEDABAD:

Naroda

police, in the early hours of Saturday, busted a ‘

con call centre

’, being run at Vrundavan Bungalows in Naroda. Police arrested four persons — Harsh Patel and Mahendra Chavda of Amraiwadi, Dhruv Patel of Odhav and Niraj Patni of Chandkeda.

Naroda police officers said Dhruv Patel, the prime accused, would provide the other accused details of US citizens including their email ids and phone numbers. Police have seized equipment including laptop and MagicJack peripherals, which were used to call US citizens. The accused used the I-beam software to snag their targets.

“The accused would send emails, text messages or make voice calls to the numbers provided to them and would lure the victim into paying ‘advance fees’ ranging from $100 to $200 dollars, promising to provide them loans. “The accused would get the victims to load money on an I-tunes gift card and provide the card number to Neeraj, who in turn would give it to Dhruv, who would then redeem the money loaded on the card,” added a police official.

Police sources said that it emerged that the call centre was being run for about a month and a half. Another man, also named Dhruv Patel, who is still absconding, used to handle the operations.

Police officials said Dhruv is a prize catch for them, as he will be able to reveal the system he used to redeem the I-Tunes cards. “It is possible that Dhruv sold the I-Tunes card numbers for a lower price to other agents. We have also beefed up intelligence in the area to know who got the I-Tunes cards redeemed for Dhruv Patel,” an investigator added.