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Viraj Desai had posted a photograph of him with DyCM on his FB; creative (R) flaunting his BJP link

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Viraj is the mastermind. The accused had allclear to enter school at night and carry on their illegal operations. A peon has been booked and brought in for questioning Rajdeepsin Zala, Cybercrime DCP

However city BJP President Manish Patel said, "Viraj may be a worker but has never been an office-bearer or active in any of the party's committees. He is not in the team anywhere, so he does not have any connection with party." City BJP President

ABJP leader and five others have been arrested for running a call centre in a school in Paldi to extort money from US citizens. Police identified Viraj Desai, an active BJP leader according to his social media posts, as the mastermind behind the racket.Desai, a Class XII passout and resident of Paraskunj Society in Satellite, is engaged in real estate dealings and was also involved in the administration of the school as his relatives were trustees at the school, said police. He had reportedly started the call centre 28 days ago because he had unrestricted access to the school at all times of the day.Desai'saccount flaunts his BJP connection. In post after post, he mentions his association with the ruling party. Among several of his photographs is one where he is posing with DyCM Nitin Patel. He has also posted several creatives with BJP logo on his social media account where he proclaims himself to be a member of the party.After theCybercrime Cell busted the call centre in a school of all places, the officers admitted that this was the first time they had chanced upon a fraud call centre with such unusual operational premises.In a raid late on Tuesday, Cybercrime officials under Inspector S R Muchas and Inspector D J Jadeja arrested six persons including Desai, its technical head and one accused who is an old hand at duping foreign citizens and has been arrested multiple times for such offences.Police said Viraj Desai's relatives serve as trustees at the school. He used to reportedly run the call centre at night when there was a peon on the premises. The peon has also been brought in for interrogation to find out the extent of involvement of trustees in this entire racket.Police officials primarily divulged that only Viraj is an accused at present. However, they are investigating how much the trustees knew about the call centre being run at the school. This would then determine whether their names would be added as accused in this case.Cybercrime DCP Rajdeepsinh Zala said, "It is clear that the accused had the all-clear to enter the school premises at night and carry on their illegal operations. A peon of the school was also booked and brought in for questioning.""While Viraj is the mastermind of the operation and is related to some of the 10 trustees of the school, Monu Oza is the technical expert handing the electronics and Pradeep Chaudhary is well-versed in handling and operations of such illegal call centres," said DCP Zala.The other accused were identified as Rohitsinh Bhati, Manthan Khatik and Ajitsinh Chauhan.Speaking of their modus operandi, officials said the accused used to first gather data from a US-based website called greendayonline.com which they had cloned, and then used to get information about various US citizens. They had made a similar website named usnetcashloan.com and used to cheat visitors to the original site with their scheme.The callers would identify themselves as officials of the 'USDepartment'. "The accused told the victims that US police had found a rented car with blood stains and drugs inside, and he or she would face severe consequences including confiscation of property as the car was hired using the victim's social security number," the official said.However, the accused used to promise to 'help' the innocent victims if they shared their information related to bank balance, credit card balance and other investments. Then then used to ask then to purchaseorcards and used this method to scam them.Police officials seized six laptops, two internet routers, an 11-page script to cheat victims, seven mobile phones, two magic jacks and seven DVRs apart from two cars.Trustee Murtaza Khan Pathan, who is also a Congress member, said, "It was vacation time and the school was closed. The guards did not inform that the building was being used at night. We have been told that Viraj is the relative of trustee Babyben and they were operating from her cabin at the school. The matter is with police and if need be, we will go to court against accused."DEO (City) R C Patel said a team from his office will visit the school to check the validity of the incident. He said that based on the committee's report, they will recommend the Board to cancel the grant-in-aid school's licence.After the racket came to light, Congress leader Arjun Modhvadia told Mirror, "Be it sex-racket, anti-national activity, or link with ISI, BJP members have been associated with all kinds of negative acts. Earlier, they extorted money from people in India, now they are doing so from US citizens too."(Inputs by Brendan Dabhi, Alok Brahmbhatt and Niyati Rana)Of the recent 26 raids in Ahmedabad, the Cybercrime Cell has busted about 24 call centres targeting Gujaratis through phishing, malware, offering lucrative deals, through threats or job offers.Even as the Cybercrime Cell busted a fraud call centre from a private school here, DCP Dr Rajdeepsinh Zala said only two such cases have been registered in the recent past, with most fake call centres targeting locals.Local police have also been making strides in busting fake call centres. In just one month, Sarkhej police busted two call centres in a single raid on the outskirts of the city while Vejalpur police busted a twoman operation targeting foreign nationals that was operating from a car within their jurisdiction.Officials at Police Bhavan said action against fake call centres was due to a systematic crackdown on such fraud in the State after provisioning of better manpower in Cybercrime cells in major cities.Mirror had on Nov 6 reported that cybercrime teams in Gujarat would be upgraded under aegis of CID Crime which heads the division in the State under DGP Ashish Bhatia, who the in-charge CP, Ahmedabad.