Guj: Six held for extorting money from US citizens through

Six persons have been arrested here for allegedly extorting money from US citizens through a call centre, the police said on Wednesday. The cyber crime cell of Ahmedabad police raided the call centre running from the premises of Ankur School in Paldi area here on Tuesday, a police official said.

The accused called people in the United States and told them that cars hired by using their social security numbers had been used for various crimes, the official said. The callers would identify themselves as officials of the `US Social Security Number Department'.

"The accused told the victims that US police had found a rented car with blood stains and drugs inside, and he or she would face severe consequences including confiscation of property as the car was hired using the victim's social security number," the official said. However, if they coughed up money, no action would be taken, the victims would be told.

The payment was received through various digital modes. The arrested accused included Viraj Desai (60), whose maternal grandmother was the founder-trustee of the school.

The school management said in a statement that Desai was no longer associated with the school, and was given access to the premises only because he was a member of the founder's family. The other accused were identified as Monu Ojha (31), Rohitsinh Bhati (24), Manthan Khatik (22), Ajitsinh Chauhan (29) and Pradeep Chaudhary (22).

They were arrested for extortion under the IPC and also under the Information Technology Act, and further probe was on, the official said. In the past, police in Gujarat as well as Maharashtra had busted similar call centre rackets where scamsters would pose as officials of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the US and extort money..

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