Photo for representation
Pune: Lonavla city police have registered a case against 20 people for allegedly operating an illegal call centre from a rented bungalow in a housing society at Nangargaon and cheating foreign nationals by impersonating representatives of reputable companies. The police seized laptops, mobile phones and cash collectively worth Rs36.41 lakh from the bungalow. All the 20 arrested people were produced before a court and remanded in police custody for seven days.
Inspector Vidhate said the accused used laptops and mobile apps to contact people in foreign countries, including the US and Canada. We have traced the owner of the bungalow,” he said. A police team led by inspectors Mahesh Vidhate and Pramod Kshirsagar raided the bungalow in the early hours of Wednesday. The operation began around 4am and continued till 6pm. He added that all the arrested accused were from Mumbai and had been operating the illegal call centre from a rented bungalow. “We are investigating how long they had been operating from the bungalow.
He said the accused used the information obtained from the victims to prepare forged bank-related documents. During questioning, they admitted to operating a call centre but could not produce the required permission,” Vidhate said. They then threatened the victims by claiming that parcels they had ordered contained narcotic substances and extorted money from them. “We received a tip-off that some people were running an illegal call centre from a bungalow in the area, so we raided it. We found several people working on laptops and mobile phones, wearing headphones and communicating in English. We took them into custody.