Man running illegal call centre scam targeting US citizens held in Ahmedabad

The Vejalpur police on Friday arrested a 25-year-old man from Fatehwadi for allegedly running an illegal call centre operation that defrauded American citizens by extracting “loan processing fees” through gift cards and converting them into cryptocurrency.

According to the FIR, the accused Soyabbhai Isubbhai Ghanchi, a resident of Fatehwadi, was detained during a patrol operation around 8.30 pm near Qadri Party Plot after police received a tip-off that he was operating a fraudulent telecalling racket using his mobile phone.

A police team, accompanied by two panch witnesses, raided the spot and apprehended Ghanchi, who was found using multiple virtual mobile numbers and encrypted messaging applications to mask his identity. Officers recovered a phone, estimated to be worth ₹5,000, from which they found data belonging to American citizens, screenshots of gift cards from companies such as Walmart, Visa and MasterCard, bank account information of foreign nationals, and records of cryptocurrency transactions.

Investigators stated that Ghanchi acquired data of U.S. citizens through a WhatsApp group named ‘Professor 2’, accessed via a Telegram link. He then passed this data to different “vendors”, who allegedly coerced victims into purchasing gift cards under the pretext of loan approvals. These gift cards were processed in WhatsApp groups with names such as ‘Dragon 2025 Post Vich RQ Q Dhamaal New’, and the value was converted into USDT (a cryptocurrency) through the ‘Trust Crypto & Bitcoin Wallet’.

Police said the accused transferred the USDT to at least three individuals believed to be linked to the wider network:

(1) Shoaib Qureshi, resident of  Fatehwadi

(2) Saqib, resident of Mirzapur

(3) Yasir Makwana alias Mac, resident of Juhapura

In return, Ghanchi allegedly received payments in Indian currency through various firms, thereby gaining financial benefits. Police said none of the operations carried out by the accused had any lawful authorisation, and all transactions were illegal.

A case has been registered under Sections of the BNS, along with Sections of the Information Technology Act. The raiding party members have been listed as witnesses, and further investigation is underway to trace additional suspects and financial trails.