HYDERABAD: The city police busted a gang that was committing fraud by running a fake international call centre. Posing as American nationals, they went about duping a number of US and UK citizens promising to provide bank loans and collecting money to the tune of over `1.50 crore. Police nabbed 14 persons, from Hyderabad, for collecting the data of USA and UK citizens and duping them. According to the police, the prime suspect, who is still absconding, hacked the data of US and UK citizens whose loan applications were rejected by banks and passed on the stolen data to the other gang members. These gangsters set up a call centre in the city and duped foreigners. The arrested persons are Md Abdul Parvez (Jason Smith), Basith Ali (Ben Hopkins), Syed Afsah Ul Islamuddin (Keeth Brown), Syed Mudassir Mohiuddin (David Homes), MA Khader (Roger Banks), Wasir Asif (Sam Wilson), Waseen Ahmed (Jack Smith), Soud Ahmed (Austin Mark), Md Quayyum (Kevin Cooper), Sk Junaid (James Smith), Syed Abdullah (Stuart Brown and also as Frank Jordon), Md Imtiyaz (Steve Jones), Syed Salman (David White) and Ravi Teja (Ben Hawkins).
All these are employees of fake call centres _ Parwez Calling Solutions, Reinbazar; Quick Cash Loans, Tolichowki; and AB Calling Solutions, Panjagutta. The key accused is Ishan Pathak. Aleem (Jason Smith), Mubeen (Jack Thomson) and Rahul Bajaj are his other accomplices. Hyderabad police commissioner M Mahender Reddy said the Rein Bazar police detained two persons who introduced themselves as Ben Hopkins and Jason Smith. Police suspected their language and names and a verification with the available documents in the bag of Ben Hopkins revealed that his original name is Basith Ali, a resident of Tolichowki. Upon further verification of his laptop and also a typical phone software, Basith Ali revealed that he, along with his friend Parvez, were cheating US citizens by luring them with the promise of personal loans. They would call their targets directly over phone from the Pravez’s residence at Rein Bazar and speak in American accent with technical assistance. Basith and Parvez worked together at Adroit Web Solutions, a call centre, for some time and became good friends. They used to call clients in the US and UK, who applied for personal loans. In 2012 the company was raided and sealed by the police for cheating US/ UK nationals.
Later, Basith joined the office of another fraud, Nauman, who too ran a similar fake loan business at Tolichowki for some time along with Naushad, Quayyum and Junaid. Nauman collected the processing data (leads) from one Khader, a Towlichowki resident, who runs a processing centre at Manikonda. Basith was not happy with the share amount and quit Nauman’s office. Later, he came in contact with Parvez and floated their own fake loan Processing Centre at the residence of Pravez at Rein Bazar duly collecting/ obtaining the US/UK citizens’ data from Ishan Pathak, a Gujarati, who is believed to be the kingpin of this illegitimate business. “The key accused, Ishan Pathak, used to hack data from banks in the USA and the UK where citizens applied for loans. He passed on the data to gangsters who made calls to foreigners and offered loans for which they collected processing fees. Once they collected the money through easy money cards in USA and UK, the money would be withdrawn and sent here through hawala,” DCP (south zone) V Satyanarayana said.