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Pune Police Crime Branch raided an illegal call centre running from the Marvel Fuego building on Magarpatta Road and arrested 32 people involved in the crime. The centre was cheating senior citizens in the United States of America by infecting their devices with malware and then extorting money through cryptocurrency scams.
The raid was carried out late on Wednesday night, September 30, by Unit 5 of the Crime Branch and resulted in the seizure of valuables worth Rs 15.77 lakh.
The accused have been identified as Nirmal Ajay Shah, 38, owner, from Hadapsar, Atul Praveen Shrimali, 30, from Magarpatta, and Yugandhar Sanjay Hadge, 34, from Manjari Budruk. Along with them, 29 call centre employees were also detained.
According to the police, acting on the tip-off, the call centre was being run from three offices on the fourth floor of the Marvel Fuego building near Seasons Mall. Police said the accused used fake malware pop-ups on phones, laptops, and computers of elderly Americans. After that, they pose themselves as technical support staff and scare the victims with threats of data theft, and convince them to pay money for fake antivirus apps and protection settings.
Sanjay Patange, Senior Police Inspector, said, “The accused were running an illegal call centre in the Hadapsar jurisdiction, and they were extorting money from American residents by misleading them. Furthermore, the matter is under investigation.”
