‘Five Star’ and ‘Seven Star’ are popular schemes for money doubling in Pudukottai and Thanjavur districts. Under the scheme, fraudsters, in a moving car, exchange five notes or seven notes for genuine currency in the guise of doubling money. Invariably, the notes handed over will be fake.
A gang that was part of such frauds moved to the city and indulged in online loan frauds by running call centres in Chennai and Bengaluru, revealed an investigation of Anti-Bank Fraud Wing. Seven people, including three women, were arrested last week. The police recovered ₹11.75 lakh from them. Offices in Chennai and Bengaluru have been sealed.
They ran a call centre in Pazhavanthangal. The accused engaged 40 tele-callers, most of them women, to lure applicants who wanted quick online loans.
A senior police officer said, “The tele-callers contacted mobile phone users in other districts and claimed to be representatives of a leading finance firm or nationalised banks. They offered personal and business loans at 8.5% through online method. They attracted gullible people stating they were not required to visit any bank for processing the loan.”
The tele-callers collected copies of the PAN card, Aadhaar card, salary statements through email. They offered ₹3 lakh to ₹15 lakh loan and said they would deduct ₹4,000 to ₹8,000 as processing fee. They then collected credit/ debit card details and OTP numbers and swindled huge amounts. “The gang is suspected to have cheated more than 1,000 persons. We suspect they swindled money up to ₹ 10 crore,” said the senior officer.