3 crore tumbles out of call centre kingpin’s cupboard
Times of India | 29 March 2025
12 Kolkata: Around Rs 3 crore in cash — in bundles of Rs 500 notes — tumbled out of three trolley bags hidden inside the false ceiling of a bathroom and a cupboard concealed within a wall behind a bedroom door of a cyber fraudster's flat in Chinar Park. More than 200 g of gold, with an approximate value of Rs 40 lakh, was also found in the flat. Police had arrested the individual for operating an international fake call centre in Sector V earlier this week.
On Tuesday, a joint team from Bidhannagar cyber cell and Electronic Complex raided a fake call centre operating from Imagine Tech Park in Sector V and arrested three persons. A total of Rs 68 lakh was recovered from the accused, with around Rs 9.4 lakh seized from flat owner Avinash Jaiswal's Chinar Park residence at that time. Besides Jaiswal, who also has a flat at Burtolla, two others — Sk Saju of Entally and Devender Singh of Behala — were arrested. Following Friday's recovery, the seized amount has come to Rs 3.7 crore.
"We suspected Jaiswal had more cash and jewellery hidden inside the Chinar Park flat. So, we conducted a raid in the presence of a videographer on Friday after a court order," said Sonawane Kuldip Suresh, deputy commissioner (detective department) of Bidhannagar Commissionerate.
The officer said the first hour of the raid didn't yield anything as the officers couldn't locate any hidden cash in the freshly decorated flat. "However, after a detailed scan, we found some aberration in the bathroom false ceiling. We also located a cupboard hidden inside a wall. We pried open both and found three trolleys containing bundles of cash," said Suresh.
Cops requisitioned a cash counting machine from a nationalised bank, and officials took more than four hours to count the notes.
Police said the accused operated for the past four months from the Sector V address, and data of over 1 lakh overseas customers, mostly US citizens, were recovered. "The victims were called on the pretext of tech support and then charged after they were sent a message that stated that bug issues of the victim's computer were solved," an officer said.
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