Lucknow Fake Call Centre Busted, 119 Held

Police busted a fake international call centre in Lucknow's Gomti Nagar area on Wednesday, arresting 119 people accused of defrauding foreign nationals through cyber fraud schemes in one of the city's largest such raids.

The operation, running under the name "Solaris Solution," worked out of two offices on the 11th floor of the Summit Building, one of Lucknow's busiest commercial complexes. Police said the centre functioned mainly at night, targeting US citizens through the "Dollar App" and other fraudulent methods.

Among those arrested are alleged operations managers Lalit Khairajani and Vikram Singh Parmar, both originally from Ahmedabad but currently based in Lucknow. The rest of the accused hail from various states and were living at different locations across the city.

A joint team from the Cyber Cell and Cyber Police Station carried out the raid following a tip-off, seizing 100 laptops, 178 mobile phones used for calls, along with other digital devices and documents.

Joint Commissioner of Police Aparna Kumar said the call centre had been operating for about a year. The accused are set to be produced before a court on Thursday. Seized devices and documents have been sent for forensic examination to determine the scale of the fraud, identify victims, trace financial transactions, and uncover other members of the network.

Police said further investigation into the wider international cyber fraud syndicate is ongoing, based on interrogation of those arrested and analysis of the recovered digital evidence.