Ahmedabad: Officers at the Cyber Centre of Excellence, Gandhinagar, on Friday said that they busted an interstate racket that allegedly used online advertisements for potency medicines to extort money from customers by posing as police officers and doctors. Seven persons were arrested after raids at two call centres in the city and another facility being set up at Bidhuna in Uttar Pradesh.Police said the accused promoted potency medicines through advertisements on social media platforms and accepted orders from customers across Gujarat and other states. The drugs were dispatched through India Post and private courier services.Police alleged that after customers received the parcels and made payments, they were contacted by callers posing as police personnel. The callers allegedly claimed the medicines were banned substances and that an FIR had been registered against the customer. Victims were threatened with arrest unless they paid money to “settle” the case.According to police officers, customers who did not accept delivery of the parcels were also targeted. They allegedly received calls from persons claiming to be doctors or police officers, who threatened legal action for ordering prohibited drugs. The callers then demanded amounts ranging from Rs 2,000 to Rs 1 lakh to avoid criminal proceedings.Police said the accused operated a 15-seat call centre at Vastral in Ahmedabad, while another team was preparing to start operations from Bidhuna in Uttar Pradesh. During the raids, officers seized 44 mobile phones, 23 CPUs, two laptops, a monitor, caller ID phones, pen drives, passbooks, cheque books, QR codes, call scripts and boxes of potency medicines.The arrested accused include the alleged mastermind and owner of the Vastral call centre, four team leaders in Ahmedabad, a team leader operating from UP, and a woman who allegedly managed operations.Police found details of 14 bank accounts allegedly used by the accused. More than Rs 5 crore in transactions were traced through these accounts. Investigators also found six complaints linked to the accounts on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, including one from Delhi, two from Rajasthan and three from Uttar Pradesh.Analysis of data recovered from the computers indicated that the syndicate may have targeted about 5,000 people across the country, police said.
