Daijiworld Media Network - Mumbai

Mumbai, Apr 30: The police busted three fake call centres that had recruited youths to dupe American nationals over the phone. Ten persons were arrested from the Malad-Goregaon belt.

The culprits presented themselves as pharma company representatives selling lifestyle drugs at a cheap rate or posed as techies providing internet services to boost online ventures of the victims. The centres functioned separately and 45 computer hard discs were seized along with 28 cellphones, routers and other equipment.

The Malad police, on the midnight of Wednesday April 28 raided a setup at Ram Baug lane. A group of youth were recruited and given laptops for carrying out the activities. The accused had sourced phone numbers of US nationals from the dark web.

"We suspect the accused have an associate based in the US who accepted payments from targets in USD. We will probe how the money was sent to India," said an officer.