In a major breakthrough, the Delhi Police, in collaboration with the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Interpol, has detained four individuals involved in a large-scale scam targeting US citizens through fraudulent call centres. The syndicate, led by Vatsal Mehta, a native of Ahmedabad in Gujarat, allegedly cheated unsuspecting victims out of over $20 million by impersonating officials from various US agencies.
The arrested individuals have been identified as Parth Armarkar (28), Vatsal Mehta (29), Deepak Arora (45), and Prashant Kumar (45). Over the past few weeks, the Special Cell of the Delhi Police successfully apprehended them from different locations across the country. These criminals operated call centres in India and Uganda, where they posed as representatives from the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in order to deceive American citizens.
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Several call centres were discovered to be operating in Delhi as well. Mehta, who is believed to be the mastermind behind the syndicate, oversaw the activities of the call centres based in Uganda.
HGS Dhaliwal, Special Commissioner of Police (Special Cell), explained: “Our team received information through secret informers, FBI and Interpol that some international cybercriminals are based in India, the US and Uganda. They are running call centres by posing as employees of US Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration, Drug Enforcement Administration and other US agencies and are causing losses to the US citizens.”
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During the course of the investigation, it was revealed that Armarkar assumed the identity of Uttam Dhillon, the former acting administrator of the DEA from 2018 to 2020. “He alone cheated victims of over 6 million USD through call centres operating in Uganda, Africa. He is an Indian national and visits India occasionally,” a police officer said.
“The FBI and the Delhi Police shared technical evidence and information on Armarkar, which led our team to identify his whereabouts in Ahmedabad from where he was running part of the criminal activities. After Armarkar’s arrest, the team nabbed Mehta, who was also on the run, from Ahmedabad,” a senior police officer explained.
Co-conspirators Arora and Kumar were traced and arrested in Uttarakhand, according to the police. The FBI had been actively searching for their involvement in the syndicate. “As part of the coordinated action, the FBI interviewed over 50 victims and also collected evidence of fraud of more than USD 20 million which will be produced in court as per the procedure. Two victims from the US have also been examined through video calling by the Special Cell of Delhi Police” HGS Dhaliwal added.
Police officials revealed that the modus operandi of the accused involved impersonating high-ranking officials and coercing victims by falsely claiming that their social security numbers or personal information had been compromised or linked to criminal activities. The victims, under the fear of legal consequences, were coerced into making payments to the fraudulent agents in exchange for clearing their names.