Police bust racket cheating people on the pretext of dating services

MP | 3 Aug 2023 | Kolkata : The Kolkata police have busted a racket that was cheating people on the pretext of dating service and nabbed 16 persons from Jadavpur and Kasba on Monday evening. 

The accused persons used to make calls from a fake call centre to dupe people. The arrested persons that include 10 women and six men were produced at the Bankshall Court on Tuesday and the women were granted interim bail while the six men were remanded to police custody till August 8. 

According to police, on Monday night, acting on a tip off, cops from the detective department conducted a raid at a flat at Poddar Nagar, in Jadavpur, where four women and a man was found sending text messages to people randomly claiming themselves as employees of a dating website and offer friendship with women. 

Their modus operandi was to convince people and respond to their approach. If any person responded and showed interest in dating, the accused persons would ask them for making registrations against money. 

After this, they would to send the photographs of women downloaded from the internet, and claim that those were the pictures who are in their payroll and would entertain them. After selecting a photograph, they used to ask for more money on the pretext of privacy fees, gold membership, booking of hotels, health card etc. 

The money the accused persons charged varied between Rs 5,000 and Rs 15,000 in multiple installments. While interrogating the women and the man in Jadavpur, police came to know that a similar office was functioning in Kasba. 

Later, a raid was conducted there as well and eight persons, including six women and two men were arrested. All the 13 arrested persons were taken to Lalbazar where a case was registered at the cyber crime police station. 

While interrogating them, the police came to know about the three joint owners of the two offices and nabbed them from near a shopping mall in Kasba. 

https://www.millenniumpost.in/bengal/police-bust-racket-cheating-people-on-the-pretext-of-dating-services-527973