CHENNAI: What shook the police after busting the dating racket wide open was that the mastermind behind the scam, Debashish Mukherjee, had completed his post graduation in Chemistry and started his career as a salesman for an Ayurvedic company in Kolkata before becoming national-level sales manager of a pharmaceutical company.
Police assume that it was his expertise in marketing that had enabled him to execute the dating scam. Anitha Dey, meanwhile, had completed her MBA when she joined the gang. The others were graduates.
The scam had come into light when a 26-year-old city-based techie working for an MNC paid `15.20 lakh for the dating scheme and approached the police when the gang stopped responding. After verifying the records seized from two of their branches in Siliguri, police found that a majority of the victims were either techies or youngsters who worked for corporations. The police also found that the accused collected money from the victims to conduct background checks saying it was a precautionary measure.
How the tricksters tricked
Hyderabad: The fool proof set up managed by the accused also did not manage to raise any suspicion in the victims. While some realised the nature of the scheme right in the beginning and dropped out midway, others went ahead to shell lakhs.
Each branch had a business of about `2 lakh and the amount multiplied on some days. They had offered three different price categories for the victims: silver for `5 lakh, gold for `10 lakh and platinum for `15 lakh. It was based on this that the dating and escort services were provided, they said.
Each branch had 20 telecallers, assigned to each state with a dedicated mobile number. As and when a person registered on the website, based on the location, his number would be passed to the telecaller.
Assigned to a particular state she would start a conversation with the person about the topography of his location, based on the details he gave. They communicated only in Hindi.
There were around 40 telecallers in all 20 branches and the accused had been paying `30,000 as monthly rent for each branch.