Cops bust fake call centre, two in net

PUNE: A cybercrime police team on Wednesday busted a fake call centre in Camp after arresting two persons for allegedly duping Americans posing as the US Social Security Administration officials and threatening the victims that their Social Security Number was being misused for drugs trafficking.
The police have seized three cellphones, 10 hard discs, three routers and eight headphones from the call centre at a commercial establishment in Camp.
The cybercrime police team led by senior inspector Jayram Paigude raided the fake call centre and arrested Aquib Shaikh (27) of Kondhwa and Sarim Shaikh (29) of Bhimpura in Camp. “We also seized 30 screen shots of pages containing data of US citizens,” Paigude said.
He said the duo had started the call centre about two months ago. They had appointed about eight people.
They would randomly contact people in the US and tell them that drug mafia was using their Social Security Number. “They would tell the victims to contact the US treasury department. Another telecaller, posing as a treasury department official, would warn them of stringent action,” Paigude said.
When the victims pleaded innocence, the suspects would tell them to purchase gift cards of different e-commerce companies. “They later converted these cards into cash,” he said.