Pune police bust fake call centre duping US nationals in Kharadi 

In a late-night operation on Friday, the Pune city police crime branch unit, along with its cyber cell, raided a fake call centre operating in Kharadi. The operation exposed how the accused targeted citizens in the United States, threatening them with ‘digital arrests’ to extort money, police officials said. 

According to police, they received specific information about a bogus call centre functioning from the Pride Icon building in Kharadi. Acting on the tip-off, a team raided the office of Magnetel BPS and Consultants LLP, located on the ninth floor of the building on Kharadi-Mundhwa road in Pune. 

During the raid, five main accused were arrested. They were identified as Sarjitsingh Giravatsingh Shekhawat from Kharadi, hailing from Rajasthan; Abhishek Ajay Kumar Pandey, originally from Ahmedabad, Gujarat; Shrimay Paresh Shah from Kharadi and originally from Ahmedabad; Laxman Amarshingh Shekhawat, also from Kharadi and originally from Ahmedabad; and Aron Aruman Christian from Kharadi, again originally from Ahmedabad. Police said a search for three more absconding individuals, Karansingh Sehekhawat, Sanjay More, and Ketan Ravani is going on.  

Alongside these five, 123 employees — including 111 men and 12 women — were found working at the fake call centre. The operation functioned from 6 pm to 2 am, coinciding with US time zones. According to police, the employees contacted thousands of American citizens and trapped them in various fraudulent schemes. All 123 individuals are currently being questioned, and appropriate legal action will be taken if their involvement is established. 

Joint commissioner of police Ranjan Kumar Sharma said that analysis of the seized laptops and desktops revealed the use of several suspicious applications, including VPN software. Using collar mics, the accused would contact US citizens on their mobile phones and, by threatening them with ‘digital arrest,’ compel them to buy gift cards.  

“They would convince American victims that their Amazon accounts were being misused for drug trafficking and threaten legal consequences unless immediate action, such as purchasing gift cards, was taken,” Sharma explained. 

He added that the call centre had been operational in Kharadi since July 2024. 

Deputy commissioner of police (DCP Crime) Nikhil Pingale said, “During the raid, we seized 64 laptops, 41 mobile phones, 4 routers, identity cards of the employees, and scripts — all together valued at ₹13.74 lakh.” Pingale added that, so far, the accused were found targeting U.S. citizens exclusively, but investigations are ongoing to determine whether citizens of other countries were also targeted. 

Detailing the modus operandi, police said that the accused hired employees from various states, offering monthly salaries between ₹25,000 and ₹30,000, depending on their communication skills. In addition to a fixed salary, staffers received incentives based on the amount they managed to extract from victims. Educational qualifications were not a priority for recruitment. Instead, the employees were trained using a detailed English script, enabling them to effectively communicate with American nationals. 

Police believe that the combination of scripted communication and night shifts helped the gang expand its operations without needing to learn additional foreign languages — a key factor in limiting their activities to English-speaking countries. 

According to investigators, the accused obtained daily data sets of up to one lakh U.S. nationals, which were then distributed among employees for cold calling. Police are now probing the source of this data and how it was acquired. 

The investigation further revealed that the arrested individuals were part of a larger international cybercrime network operating on a massive scale. Using various Indian banks, they funnelled fraudulently obtained US dollars into hawala channels and cryptocurrencies. 

Police said the gang generated an average monthly income of USD 30,000 to 40,000 from their fraudulent operations targeting US nationals. 

It has also emerged that each of the five arrested had their own smaller gangs, and together they operated the large-scale call centre. To avoid detection by law enforcement, the accused frequently shifted their base of operations from one state to another. Before setting up in Pune, they had been operating from Jaipur, Rajasthan. 

The raid involved 20 police officers and 150 constables. A case has been registered at the cyber police station under Sections 316(2), 318(4), 61(1), and 3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), along with Sections 66(c) and 66(d) of the Information Technology Act.