Police bust fake call centre near Kolkata, seize Rs 4 cr cash
Darpan News Desk IANS, 08 Mar, 2023 02:27 PM
Kolkata, March 8 (IANS) Following a surprise raid by the officers of the Bidhannagar Police Commiserate on Wednesday evening, unaccounted cash worth around Rs 4 crore was seized from a fake call centre in the Rajarhat-Newtown area on the outskirts of Kolkata.
A police officer said that the exact amount seized was a little over Rs 3.82 crore.
"Apart from the cash, gold and silver jewellery in substantial quantities as well as several high-end premium brand wrist watches were also recovered from the fake call centre. The valuation of the seized items is yet to be done," the officer said.
Apart from that, four high-end premium vehicles were also seized from outside the call centre.
The police have arrested six persons in this connection, out of whom two are residents of Liluah in Howrah district, two are from Maharashtra and one from Gujarat. The police suspect that besides running the fake call centre, the arrested persons were also involved in illegal hawala transactions.
The officer said that through this call centre, these persons mainly targeted elderly citizens in different parts of the globe.
"We suspect that the arrested persons are part of an international forgery racket. We will interrogate them to collect information on their partners and masterminds in this illegal trade," the officer said.
The court had, on March 4, extended Sisodia's CBI custody for two days and listed his bail plea for March 10 and in the last two days, the CBI questioned him with key witnesses -- former excise commissioner Arva Gopi Krishna and former excise department secretary C. Arvind -- in this case, who recorded their statements in front of a magistrate.
A police official said that the two men, wearing masks, entered the bank branch at around 9.45 a.m. when only three employees were present there, and threatened the staff with a pistol. They forced the staff to open the vault where Rs 10 lakh was kept and fled with the money by 10.30 am.
The Chief Minister, who reviewed the arrangements for the mega event here, said Punjab is fully ready to host the sessions and asked the officers to ensure foolproof arrangements for the working sessions slated to take place at the holy city of Amritsar next week.
The arrested customers have been identified as Anil, Rajan, Sagir, Abhishek and Harish. The house belongs to one Neeraj Bhati. Police recovered six mobile phones, Rs 2,100 in cash and objectionable items from their possession.
As during over one-hour address in English, the Governor was referring to 36 government school principals being sent on a five-day leadership development programme to Singapore, Bajwa again stood up and reminding Purohit about his letter to Mann on the issue.
The arrested persons have been identified as Zahir Hossain Mollah and Giasuddin Mondal. Both are residents of North 24 Parganas district. During questioning, they admitted that they crossed the border to Bangladesh to get the gold biscuits from one Karim Mondal -- a resident of Jessore district there.
