Meerut, Dec. 7 -- Police said they have busted a cyber fraud that targeted people in multiple states and was operated out of a call centre in Pilibhit. After a raid on the said call centre, police arrested three men who ran the facility and siphoned off money from bank accounts across India. The key accused reportedly learnt the ropes of running such a facility in Dubai. The arrests followed an intensive probe into suspicious bank accounts flagged on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP). Pilibhit ASP Vikram Dahiya said an investigation revealed unusual activity linked to a Jan Seva Kendra run by one Gaurav Sharma in the Ghunghchai area. Acting on surveillance inputs, police arrested the alleged mastermind Amritpal Singh of Haripur in Ajitpur Bilha. From his possession, police recovered nine phones, two laptops, over Rs.59,000 cash, pre-activated SIM cards, multiple bank passbooks, fake IDs (foreign and Indian), and other incriminating material. During his interrogation, Amritpal confessed that he had gone to Dubai in 2024 with an associate, where he learned how illegal call centres operate. After returning to India, he set up a fake call centre at his home. The gang targeted people using online gaming apps such as Aviator and Rummy. They first won victims' trust by helping them earn small amounts and sending money to their accounts. Once confidence was built, they extracted bank details and emptied the victims' accounts. The gang purchased mobile numbers of gaming enthusiasts from the dark web to identify potential targets, the ASP added. Meanwhile, the police said they were finding out the amount of money that had been siphoned off so far by the three accused. Among two of Amritpal's accomplices, one is Dharmendra Kumar of Udraha village. As a bank agent operating a BC centre, he opened accounts for locals and provided them to Amritpal for routing fraudulent transactions, officials said, adding some account holders received small payments as commission. Another accomplice Priyanshu Dixit of Ghunghchai sold pre-activated SIM cards to Amritpal for Rs.1,000 each. He exploited telecom companies' ID processes to issue two SIMs using one identity-keeping one and selling the other in the black market. Police suspect that the Jan Seva Kendra's actual owner, Gaurav Sharma, may have been operating the syndicate through Dharmendra. A manhunt has been launched to locate him. The investigation revealed that bank accounts used by the gang were linked to cyber-fraud cases in Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh....