THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As many as 10 people were arrested by the police in the Sreekaryam online loan app fraud on Tuesday, including two suspected masterminds.
“In the guise of a US-based call centre, the scammers have been working in a rented space at Pongummoodu. However, the local residents doubted the overall behaviour of the employees, which later led to doubts that they might have links to the drugs network. Even though we received information that they have been engaged in narcotics, we are yet to confirm this,” city police commissioner Arul R B Krishna said.
The commissioner told TNIE that one of the accused was nabbed from Thiruvananthapuram airport and another from Ahmedabad airport while trying to escape. He added that the accused arrested from Ahmedabad has a precedent of a similar case in Gujarat by faking as officials from the firm ‘Advance America’. The other arrested include UP and Bihar natives, who were employed in the company.
Meanwhile, the police have strengthened the search for the scam’s suspected kingpin, Akashdeep Choudhary, who fled from Thiruvananthapuram when he got hints that the police were about to crack down on them through a raid on Monday.
Following the arrests, Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala called the city police commissioner and appreciated the officers who nabbed the scamsters.
Even though the police tried to approach the company as a customer, efforts went in vain. But subsequent probe led to a raid and officials confiscated 41 computers and two laptops. The police said the accused got hold of the crucial details like social security numbers of some foreigners, mostly US citizens, using which they contacted the victims. Communicating with them through messages, the scammers even threatened the foreigners that their CIBIL score may get dropped if they do not give them money.
Officials said that even though they are yet to arrive at a conclusive figure of the scam’s extent, money worth crores has been scammed from the victims. The cyber police are trying to access data from the computer which was used by Akashdeep to estimate the extent of the scam.
However, the police haven’t identified any specific reason as to why the scammers chose Kerala as their place of action. “Prima facie it seems that, Thiruvananthapuram being a techie-city, the scammers tried to mimic the operations of similar call centres working in the Technopark,” a police official said. The police are also trying to identify if the accused have received any local support for the scam.
