GHAZIABAD: A joint team of the special task force and Noida police arrested 24 youths from a call centre operating from a flat in Bisrakh that cheated US citizens on the pretext of renewing their policies or offering technical assistance.Among the 24 arrested youths was Ankur Gupta, an MBA graduate who led the gang. Apart from the call centre in Mahagun Mywoods, he ran another office in Indirapuram.The gang, police said, procured phone numbers and insurance records of US citizens from the dark web and made random calls, offering to renew their policies against a commission.They would also offer technical assistance to those facing issues with their computers, laptops and other electronic devices. Anyone looking up certain websites for technical help would be asked to make calls on a few numbers. These calls would then be directed to the call centres in Bisrakh and Indirapuram.The targets would be asked to make payments in dollars, with which the gang would buy Bitcoins. They would then go incommunicado. According to police, Ankur and his team made some 1,500 calls a day and earned around Rs 10 lakh from the fraud.The Noida police swung into action after a tip-off from US investigating agencies that calls used to cheat two American citizens – Samir Gupta and John Jonas of New Jersey – had been made from a centre in Noida. An MBA graduate named Ankur Gupta was running two call centres and had hired people with good command over English. One of the call centres was operating out of Mahagun Mywoods society in Bisrakh and another from a building in Indirapuram. We arrested 24 youths involved in making calls, said additional SP Raj Kumar Mishra.It was in 2019 that Ankur came in touch with a man from Gujarat who introduced him to Himanshu, who was based in Hong Kong and cheated people with various fake offers. With help from Himanshu, Ankur had been running the call centres for almost five years. He would change his location frequently so that he could avoid arrest, Mishra said.The mostly operated on the dark web. They would not only source phone numbers and other crucial data from there, but also strike deals with agencies so that calls made on numbers provided on the internet for technical assistance landed up at the Noida and Ghaziabad centres, the officer said.Eight cars, including a Mercedes Benz, were seized from the two offices of Ankur. The police team also seized 23 laptops, 36 phones, 60 printers, Rs 4 lakh in Indian currency, 770 Hong Kong dollars, 318 Singaporean dollars, 6,170 Thai baht and 1,445 dirhams.A case was lodged at Bisrakh police station under sections 420 (cheating), 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and relevant provisions of the IT Act, Mishra said.

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