Kolkata: Kolkata Police on Friday busted a fake call center in the city and arrested eight people for allegedly duping a US citizen of $1,44,000 (about ₹ 1.2 crore), a senior official said.

The fake call center was busted in New Alipore area of the city and the eight were arrested from there during a raid, he said.

Several mobile phones, one laptop, two hard discs were seized during the operation, the official said.

The US citizen was defrauded on March 2 this year by the eight accused who used Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and posed as officers of the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency, a US body meant to protect that country's cyberspace, the police official said.

VoIP is a technology that allows voice calls to be made by using a broadband internet connection instead of a regular (or analog) phone line.

"The accused persons had induced the victim on the pretext of conducting a sting operation and took remote access to her computer system and siphoned off US $144,000 from her account," the official told PTI.

The police are investigating the role that the eight accused played in defrauding several US citizens, he said.

The information about the racket was received at the city's Cyber police station through the CBI and Interpol, who were intimated about the crime by Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"We raided the fake call center at New Alipore and arrested the eight accused. A considerable number of documents were also seized. The documents establish the call center's role in duping several US citizens, including the victim of the instant case,' he said.

The arrested are residents of Behala, Parnasree and Sarsuna areas, which are near New Alipore, the official added.