ED Apprehends Four Accused in Rs 261 Crore US Call Centre Fraud under PMLA, All Remanded to Judicial Custody:

The Enforcement Directorate (ED), Hyderabad Zonal Office, has arrested four accused in connection with Rs 261 crore (US$ 27.39 million) US call centre fraud through 927 collections between July 2025 and September 2026. The arrest took place on Tuesday under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The accused have been identified as Harshil Nayanbhai Raval, Jaswant Singh, Chetan Munjal and Pranav Pithadia. They have all been remanded to judicial custody by the Special PMLA Court, Nampally. Presently, seven accused have been arrested in the present case, as previously three were arrested in July and August 2026. They are lodged in Chanchalguda Central Prison.

According to the ED, the syndicate used lists of around 20 lakh US phone numbers to target people, most of them elderly. The calls were made from India using auto-dialer servers located in Germany and Finland. The callers pretended to be officials of US agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission and Department of the Treasury. They threatened people with arrest or seizure of their assets by falsely claiming that they were involved in financial or criminal investigations.

In this fraud, the victims were compelled to hand over cash and gold to collection agents, sending cash using courier services and money to mule bank accounts or buying gift cards. According to the sources, the syndicate operated their own call centres with employees working as dialers, bankers, and closers. As of now, the fraud has uncovered 549 victims and 6,463 US numbers that were called or messaged. The fraudsters operated 397 mule accounts across 15 US banks.

The proceeds generated from the fraud were first transferred to accounts in Dubai and Hong Kong, thereafter converted into cryptocurrency, such as USDT and then sent to India using hawala and angadia channels. This money was thereafter used to purchase properties, vehicles, companies, gold, etc., in India.

In relation to the fraud, the ED had conducted searches at four premises linked to the accused individuals located in Patiala, Pune and Chandigarh, on September 15, 2026, wherein officials found three operational call centres with about 220 employees working.