Extortion racket busted, 3 held

Delhi Police have busted a gang of youths which allegedly extorted money from NRI couples.

Police cracked down on a call centre, and 13 computers, laptops, cellphones, internet dongles and several documents showing withdrawal of extorted money through the Western Union Bank were recovered.

The gang used the computer systems for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to call up NRIs to extort money. One of the accused worked with a franchise of th Western Union Bank.

The accused reportedly zeroed-in on victims by searching their profiles on naukri.com, particularly those who have moved to the United Kingdom.

They used the computer application to make spoof calls and threatened to launch a complaint against the victims if they did not oblige to the demand.

Amritabh Roy residing in the UK had emailed the Cyber Cell of Economic Offence Wing through an email that his wife Sudeshna Dasgupta had received a call on August 27 from callers who claimed to be officials of United Kingdom Border Agency.

They told Dasgupta that she had not fulfilled the immigration formalities in India while leaving for the UK and this amounted to a criminal offence.

In order to evade a prosecution, she has to pay a fine of 1,477 pounds, they said.
The gang reportedly kept her busy on the cellphone till she transferred the amount. Later, they called back and asked her to give 1,300 pounds as bail bond.

The complainant grew suspicious when the gang comprising three-four members called up the second time.

She told police the youths were faking British accent and operating from a room with no external noise.

An FIR was registered two days later.

Police monitored Tilak Nagar branch of Western Union. Pawan Kumar, the franchise operator of the branch, confessed to the crime after sustained interrogation.

He revealed that they were running an illegal call centre and cheating couples. Kumar withdrew the money through fake ID proofs.

On the instance of Kumar, Gaurav Pingolia and Aman Chhabra were arrested. Both Pingolia and Chhabra are DU graduates.

Pingolia started his consultancy Inter Globe Solutions in Shastri Nagar where he eventually started duping NRIs.

The accused admitted to using an IP server belonging to Pacific Communication, UK.
The victims either transferred funds through Western Union or Money Gram to avoid the supposed arrest, deportation or detention.

The money was withdrawn by the agents and forged entries were made in the records to fulfil the guidelines of RBI.