Fake call centre bust: Crime branch to record US nationals' statements

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Thye crime branch is likely to take statements of the US nationals cheated by the accused running the fake call centre that was recently busted in Andheri. Crime branch sources revealed that cops have recovered several documents and emails sent from the call centre to US citizens while cheating them.

The crime branch has sent out emails to those citizens, and also tried to contact them through the phone numbers found from the arrested accused. The cops will be taking the citizens' statements to strengthen their case against the accused.

Sources also revealed that for speaking to these Americans, the call centre employees would use a number that looked American, by feeding a random 11-digit number into their system, which would show up as an American number on the screen of the US citizen whenever they were called through VOIP. They'd also bought two toll-free numbers for around Rs 4,000 each to mention when they contacted the citizens via email, to make their scam seem legitimate.

Bought data
The sources added that the three arrested, identified as David Alfanso, the call centre owner, Sandip Yadav, an IT professional, and Bipin Sahu, an alleged mastermind of the scam, had bought the data of American nationals from an online portal, where anyone can allegedly buy such data. This data contains their full name, email id, contact number and antivirus the person is using on their computer.

Staff got pseudonyms
Sources further said that cops have also discovered that people working at the call centre were given American-sounding names while speaking to victims. Moreover, at the time of joining the call centre, the employers gave all the employees a three-page script, which has also been recovered from the call centre by the police.

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