Pune: In a joint operation, the Hadapsar and Mundhwa police raided four locations in Hadapsar, Phursungi and Bhekrainagar and busted an online gaming fraud racket being run through call centres. Two key accused were arrested, while a case was registered against 10 others, including the alleged kingpin operating from Dubai.The arrested accused were identified as Santosh Datta Venjanekar (47) of Bhekrainagar and Vinayak alias Deepak Manohar Ikke (40) of Phursungi.Police investigations revealed that the racket lured people to online gaming platforms by initially allowing them to win small amounts. Victims were then persuaded to invest larger sums and continue depositing money on the promise of recovering their losses. Preliminary findings indicated that the call centres had been operating for four months and cheating nearly 300 people daily.Additional commissioner of police (crime) Tejaswi Satpute said, “After gaining the victims’ confidence, the accused encouraged them to transfer money to participate in online games. They were initially allowed to win but later suffered losses and were induced to deposit more money with assurances that their losses could be recovered.”Police recovered a country-made pistol and six live cartridges from Venjanekar. Investigators found that he had allegedly misused employees’ PAN and Aadhaar details to open bank accounts for receiving money from victims. Five minors were also found working at the call centres.The police seized hard disks, auto-diallers, SIM cards, server storage devices, laptops, CCTV DVRs, mobile phones, cheque books, passbooks, debit and ATM cards, PAN cards, cash, gold and silver ornaments, the pistol and cartridges.A case has been registered under relevant sections of the BNS, the Online Gaming Act, the Juvenile Justice Act and the Arms Act.
