Fake college admission racket busted: 10 arrested, ₹1.35 crore seized in Pune call centre fraud
The Mumbai Police have arrested ten people for allegedly running two bogus call centres in Pune that cheated parents by promising to secure admissions for their children in prominent educational institutions. The accused are linked to at least six cases across Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, and Gujarat.
Police said property worth ₹1.35 crore was seized in the operation, including three cars allegedly belonging to the main accused — a BMW, a Jaguar, and a Maruti Suzuki Ciaz — which were registered in the names of other people. An amount of ₹24 lakh was also recovered from a bank account allegedly used to receive the proceeds of the fraud.
The case came to light after Gracy Peter Gwami, 47, a resident of Shiv Om Society in Gokhale Nagar, Mumbai, filed a complaint. She had responded to an advertisement on an Instagram page named ‘techorbit1111’. The accused allegedly claimed they could secure her son’s admission to IIT Hyderabad through the NRI or management quota. They took her to the IIT Hyderabad campus, claiming to have strong connections, and sought payments of ₹2 lakh to ₹3 lakh at a time towards deposit, advance, and first-year academic fees. In total, she paid ₹16.50 lakh. After receiving the full amount, the accused switched off their phones, prompting her to approach the police. The police immediately contacted the bank and the defrauded money was frozen.
A case was registered at the Powai Police Station on August 13, 2026, under Sections 318(4) and 319(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. On August 14, police raided the two alleged call centres in Pune’s Lohegaon and Kharadi areas, arresting ten people. They seized 22 mobile phones, 23 SIM cards, two hard disks, two laptops, seven debit cards, and documents containing names and mobile numbers of colleges and other institutes.
Datta Nalawade, Deputy Commissioner of Police, West Zone 3, Mumbai, said the accused operated from two call centres in Pune and had engineering backgrounds. “This cheating case was being run from two call centres in Pune, where they would contact victims, keep conversations and engage them until they could extract the maximum amount of money from the victims. Five of the 10 accused are B. Tech graduates, and the other five also have some engineering background, so they had knowledge about the admission process and knew all the technical terms needed to convince people,” Mr. Nalawade said.
Police said the main accused had allegedly been operating the admission racket from Lohegaon since 2019 and subsequently recruited others into the operation from 2024. Of the 22 phones seized, 13 were recovered from the main accused. Five devices had allegedly been purchased using money obtained from the complainant. Analysis of the devices led police to the Lohegaon call centre, which was raided.
The main accused was produced before a local court on August 15, 2026, and remanded to police custody until August 20, 2026. Police said they have so far linked the accused to six cases — one each in Mumbai, Nagpur, Karnataka, and Gujarat, and two in Uttar Pradesh. The evidence also included a list of 30 mobile numbers and names of educational institutions, including Pune Institute of Computer Technology, Netaji Subhas University of Technology, and Delhi Technological University. Police are investigating whether more people were affected.
