Mumbai: Powai police busted two Pune-based call centres and arrested a 35-year-old civil engineer and nine other engineers for allegedly duping at least 35 persons of Rs 50 lakh after promising them seats for their children under the management quota at engineering colleges and universities in Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, Noida and Pune.Inspector Sushant Bandgar said the civil engineer, Sonu Kumar, was the mastermind and all 10 would arrive in Pune from their hometowns in Bihar, Haryana, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh every April at the beginning of the college admission season and carry out their con over four months. “The team had operated out of Pune since 2024,” said DCP (west zone-3) Datta Nalawade.Sub-inspector Prashant Kendre said each of them used two burner phones to dodge police.Inspector Jaydeep Gosavi said the fraudsters placed advertisements promising admissions on Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms. “When a victim clicked on the advertisement, a pop-up box asked them to fill in their name and contact details.”A Powai couple fell for this ruse and paid Rs 16.5 lakh for their son’s admission at International Institute of Information Technology-Hyderabad. Two of the accused met them on the college premises, thereby gaining their trust. Senior police inspector A S Sawant said the couple’s son received an email on July 13 purportedly from the institute confirming his admission and instructing him to join classes on Aug 1. However, the parents got suspicious as the domain name was different in the email.Nalawade said the racket was busted after a police team posed as parents and nabbed the fraudsters. “We have recovered the Powai couple’s Rs 16.5 lakh.”Kumar and two of the accused had done their engineering course together and later hired people from their hometowns for the racket. “During the probe, we found out there are at least five cases registered against them across the country. Kumar owned three high-end cars. The cars are registered in his friends’ names, which have been seized,” said sub-inspector Sagar Jadhav. Police said the team seized 22 mobiles, 23 SIMs, a laptop, seven debit cards, a tablet and Rs 24 lakh from frozen accounts. They said they are looking for two more accused in the case.
