Police bust fake call centre in Kolkata duping US citizens

MP, 30 JAN 2026, Kolkata: Kolkata Police have busted a racket operating a fake call centre that allegedly duped US citizens by posing as technical support executives.

Police seized 12 laptops, three routers, six mobile phones, five headsets with multimedia calling and listening facilities, along with a large volume of digital leads and incriminating electronic data.

According to police, officers of the Kolkata Cyber Crime Police Station received information about suspicious activity at a flat in a posh housing complex near the Sealdah ESI Hospital. A raid was conducted early on Thursday, leading to the arrest of Sarim Reza, identified as the principal operator of the syndicate. Two mobile phones were seized from him.

Based on his interrogation, another raid was conducted at a house in Bishnupur in South 24-Parganas, where four more persons were arrested. Police found that an illegal call centre was operating from the premises, with callers impersonating executives of PayPal.

Police said the accused circulated contact numbers on web and social media platforms popular in the United States. When US citizens contacted these numbers, the accused posed as PayPal customer or technical support executives and persuaded victims to install remote access applications such as TeamViewer, UltraViewer and AnyDesk. This allowed unauthorised access to the victims’ computer systems.

Using this access, the fraudsters allegedly entered PayPal accounts and siphoned off money to bank accounts and digital wallets controlled by the racket. To mask their identity and location, they used sophisticated Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).

Police are investigating the number of victims, the amount cheated and the methods used to transfer and convert the money into Indian rupees.