On April 22 and 23, 2025, police in Kolkata, West Bengal, India raided two illegal call centers for scamming money from American, Australian and European citizens. The two call centers raided were:
1, An apartment at 88, Roy Bahadur Rd, Barik Para, Indrajit Pally, Behala, Kolkata, West Bengal 700034, India.
- The scammers were found to be making VoIP calls to American citizens under the guise of PayPal to falsely claim their victims unknowingly purchased Bitcoin from Coinbase.
- The scammers requested their victims provide OTPs and install remote access software so they can gain access to their bank accounts and siphon the money out.
- Seven were arrested:
-
- Ritick Singh from Behala
-
- Gobind Rajbhar from Behala
-
- Sujan Singha from Behala
-
- Sohail Rayaz from Golf Green
-
- Debasish Roy from Picnic Garden
-
- Akash Shaw from Parnashree
-
- Ritesh Raj from Siwan, Bihar.
- Police have also seized 13 mobile phones, 3 laptops and 1 wifi router.
2, A call center in Selimpur
- Nine scammers impersonated several companies, including Amazon, Visa and Mastercard to falsely claim their victim’s bank accounts were tampered.
- The victims would be asked to provide their banking details to pay a “service fee,” and the scammers would siphon the money out through the use of gift cards.
- 10 hard drives, 10 headphones, 1 mobile phone and 1 internet router were seized during the raid.