Hyderabad, Jan 29 (IANS): Telangana police have busted a group running an elaborate call centre racket targeting Telugu speakers operating from Jharkhand.

The police unearthed the scam on Friday following the arrest of nine persons in Dhanbad, Jharkhand.

The arrested have been identified as autorickshaw drivers Katravath Raju, K Santosh, and D Srinivasulu ; students E Ganesh, M Venkatesh, K Harilal, K Ganesh, M Ganesh; and farmer K Raju, police officials said.

According to the police, Katravath had struck up a friendship with Vikram Thakur from Jharkhand, who used to engage the former's autorickshaw whenever he used to visit Hyderabad.

Thakur told Katravath about his difficulty in finding Telugu manpower for his cyberfraud operations under the guise of offering loans and other services to people in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

For a 30 per cent commission, Katravath along with his brother-in-law Santosh began gathering Telugu-speaking persons from their village Peddamandad in Wanaparthy district of Telangana.

In January 2021, all the nine accused went to Dhanbad where Vikram Thakur provided them with accomodation and training in online fraud activities such as phishing.

Rachakonda police said that apart from procuring several SIM cards, Vikram Thakur also operated bank accounts under fictitious names.