‘Easy money lured me’, confesses core member in call centre scam

THANE: The 26-year-old management graduate who was part of the core team in the call centre scamming racket has confessed to the police that this annual income from the crime exceeded Rs 60 lakhs and the lure of easy money made him continue. Tapesh Gupta, 26 an MBA in marketing, is a school buddy of the kingpin Sagar Thakkar from Nalasopara.


However, despite a degree and repeated attempts at competitive exams he failed to get a job and the remuneration he desired. Gupta said after his graduation he took jobs in

Gujarat

in the BPO sector and was aware of the functioning of the call centre business.

It was in 2016 that Thakkar established contact with him and persuaded him to join the con call business. “Initially, they set up a call center at Mira road which had a sitting capacity of 20. Within months the business flourished and the fraudsters expanded their operation leasing out all the seven floors in the Mira Road building with 200 people,” a police official said.

Gupta had appeared for the exams for recruiting staff to the Intelligence Bureau and wanted to be an officer in agency. The accused, who looked at the fake call centre is one of the managers and partner of the fake call centers. Gupta told the police that he Thakkar and one other accused Avinash Master were school friends. “Shaggy gave him the capital to set up Mira Road BPO as Gupta refused to work in Ahmedabad,” he said.

“Shaggy was the flashy types who would speak with an accent drive swank cars and had a team of bouncers surrounding him. Gupta was the logistics man who would set up the whole business and involved in the nitty gritty,” said the officer.

“Gupta told us that he would distribute most of his profits among the employees as perks as he did not want to lose employees to the other rivals,” a police officer told TOI.

The police said the information given by Gupta shall be corroborated with the evidences and statements of other accused.