AHMEDABAD: Cybercrime police on Friday arrested two youth, both residents of Sabamati, for allegedly cheating American citizens by operating a ‘con call centre’ in the city. The two would make calls to American citizens in the name of a fictitious ‘USA Advance America Loan Center’.
The two accused were identified as Gaurang Rathod and Amandeepsingh Bhatia. A complaint has been registered by H N Vaghela, a sub-inspector with the cybercrime police station. Vaghela stated that they received a tip-off that Rathod and an accomplice were running a con call centre operation from a house in the Motera area.
The complainant stated that the informer stated that they were running a call centre pretending to be an American loan providing agency.
The informer also told them that the accused used to use the MagicJack mobile application and to displaying the name ‘USA Advance America Loan Center’ on the call receiver’s device. The complainant stated that he got information that they were calling the American citizens and telling them that their loan application had been processed, and that they needed to pay a loan insurance fee. They would then tell the target to send them a gift voucher number on WhatsApp, which they would redeem to get the money.
The tip-off was verified and it was decided to carry out a raid. The complainant stated that when they reached the house, Gaurang Rathod was sitting inside speaking in English over the phone with his laptop opened. The cops him. He then confessed to police that he was identifying himself as officer of the USA Advance America Loan Center. He also told them that he was calling the American citizens using the MagicJack application.
He told investigators that he used to process the gift cards through Amandeepsingh Bhatia. The complainant stated that Rathod said he was sending the gift card numbers on a WhatsApp group, which had administrators named John Peterson alias Amit Chaudhary, Bapu, Norman alias Manthan Yadav, Mike alias Avtar Rajpurohit and Jiten Nayar.
The complainant stated that Manthan Yadav was the administrator of the ‘Yadav depositors’ WhatsApp group.
The cops recovered four mobile phones and a laptop from the two accused and are looking for the others who were the administrators of the group and are investigating their role in the racket.
