Ghaziabad: Ghaziabad cyber cell on Friday busted a sham call centre and arrested seven people, including two women, for duping more than 500 people of crores by promising them bonuses on insurance policies.
Police said that the gang was masterminded by Pradeep Prasad (33) and Sumit Malik (25), both residents of Delhi. They had opened the call centre in 2015 and in 2017, they were sent to jail for a fraud of Rs 80 lakh in Hyderabad.
Other accused have been identified as Jyoti Malik (26), Pinky Rawat (25), Akshay (26), Rahul (25) and Rupesh (29). Sumit’s sister Jyoti and Pinky used to call around 150 people every day and for that they would get a salary of Rs 35,000 per month, apart from incentives. While Akshay took care of the data provided by the victims, both Rahul and Rupesh dealt with the money. Police also accessed an e-mail in Akshay’s phone where numbers and information of about 20,000 people were stored.
Police are investigating how Akshay got the data and what he would do with it.
SP-city-1 Nipun Aggarwal said police arrested Rahul and Sumit from Raj Nagar District Centre on Thursday and while interrogation they revealed their modus operandi and told that they would operate from an office in Kaushambi.
The SP said the accused used to call the victim and lure them with lucrative insurance options. Once, they gained their trust, they would ask for money. After duping them of over Rs 2 lakh, they would switch off their phone.
They also revealed the involvement of one Jeetu Sahibi, who would open bank accounts of uneducated people. He is on the run.
Police have recovered 41 A-4 sheets with names and insurance policy numbers of around 1,200 people from their Kaushambi office. Investigation revealed that the gang was using 12 bank accounts and at least Rs 3 lakh was saved in each of the accounts.
The accused were booked under the Sections 420 (Punishment for cheating), 467 (Forgery), 468 (Forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (Using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) of the IPC. All the accused were sent to judicial custody after producing them in court.