Noida-based online loan fraud racket busted, three arrested

BHOPAL: The Bhopal cybercrime branch on Friday claimed to have busted a Noida-based online loan fraud racket with the arrest of three persons.
The kingpin of the racket is a 21-year-old techie.
ADG Upendra Jain said the racket operated fake websites in the guise of loan and finance companies to lure victims. Alluring advertisements offering loans up to Rs 20 lakh were given through Google Ads to net victims. ASP (Cybercrime Branch) Sandesh Jain said that Padmesh Singh, a resident of Bhopal, filed a complaint that in December 2019 he was duped through a website www.swiftfinance.in on pretext of providing personal loan. Acting on his complaint police registered a case and started investigations.
During investigation, police zeroed in on David Kumar Jatav (21), a resident of Gaziabad, Manisha Bhatt (27), Neha Bhatt (23), both residents of Uttarakhand and Kamal Kashyap. Police team arrested David, Neha and Manisha from their call centre in Noida.
ASP Jain said that David is the kingpin of the racket. He worked at an IT company where he got the idea of running the loan fraud racket. He designed the fake websites to lure victims. Neha came to work as an executive at his call centre in August 2018 and is now his fiancée.Her elder sister Manisha too joined the racket .
Jain said David operated two call centres in Noida where around 50 girls were employed to contact the victims, who visited their websites, and extracted their details. The accused then used to siphon off around Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000 from each loan seeker in the name of processing fees, security deposit, GST and one-time transaction offering them loan at cheap interest rates.
ADG Jain said that around 1,000 people were duped of over Rs 1.5 crore through www.swiftfinance.in, which was functional during the probe. Police said at least 12 such websites had been made in the past two years duping over 10,000 people across the country. The total amount defrauded from people may cross over Rs 10 crore.The ADG said that Kamal Kashyap, who provided forged bank accounts to the racket, is on the run. Kashyap allegedly charged Rs 50,000 for each account.