Pune: The Pune cyber crime branch arrested five from Delhi for duping a Kothrud-based chartered accountant of Rs 4.68 lakh.
The BPO was raided on Wednesday and the suspects were brought to the city on Friday.
The action followed a complaint filed by Kothrud resident Pankaj Modani (38), who approached the Kothrud police on April 12. He had paid Rs 4.68 lakh to the fraudsters to buy a digital camera worth not more than Rs 1.31 lakh in the market.
A team headed by senior inspector Sunil Pawar and assistant police inspector Girisha Nimbalkar raided the spot and arrested the suspects identified as Anujkumar Dineshkumar Tiwari (35), Vikas Ravindarsingh Rawat (24), Devsingh Chandrapal Gautam (23), Pavan Narayan Mishra (18) and Sunilkumar Maheshkumar Chand (24), all residents of Delhi. The prime suspect, Deepak Kumar, is still at large.
This is the sixth call centre raided by the Pune cyber crime branch in Delhi and Noida since January this year.
In October 2015, Modani received a call from Delhi. The caller told Modani that his number has been selected in a lucky draw which allows him to shop online for costly products for free. Modani was told that he will be required to pay only the VAT (Value Added Tax).
When Modani gave his nod, he received an email from www.shopittoday.in explaining details of the offer.
Modani selected a digital camera. The suspects demanded insurance cost, product cost, VAT and the list went on. By the end of March, Modani had paid them Rs 4.68 lakh, but he did not receive the product.
Pawar said 10 tele-callers were employed by the BPO operator and a few were found operating computers. The tele-callers would randomly select numbers and call up people telling them that they had won a lucky draw.
A study of their bank accounts revealed that the BPO had cheated people of Rs 9 crore.
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