The police found that the accused were working as customer care support and were offering loans to people. The Delhi police busted a call centre operating out of an office in Dwarka and arrested 12 people for allegedly cheating more than 1,700 persons of around Rs 2-5 crore by impersonating a loan agency app. According to the police, the accused were disguising their office as a medical store to evade police.
The police sent a team to Delhi’s Uttar Nagar after receiving information about an illegal call centre being operated there. Initially, one of the accused, a man named Faisal, misled the police by claiming that the employees were marketing medicines. He pointed out a few medicine boxes as proof. Later, however, the police found that the accused were working as customer care support and were offering loans to people.
Harsha Vardhan, DCP (Dwarka) said, “It was revealed that the accused were taking bank account details of the people and also asked for money as a fee for loans. They were not providing loans but were cheating their customers. Another main accused, Paras, who leased the place and was running it as an illegal call centre, is absconding.”
Each of the accused were tasked with different things — while three people provided bank account details to collect money, others were responsible for getting SIM cards and sending bulk SMS’ to random customers to lure them for loans, the police said.
Out of the 12 accused, six are women who were employed as callers and were given a script to read out and ask people to take instant loans. In the name of loans, the women would then take bank details, passwords and other sensitive information.
The DCP said the accused have been running the illegal call centre for nine months and have cheated more than 1,700 persons.
“For now, we have proof that there are 1,700 victims. There could be more. We have recovered 29 registers with the names and details of the victims and transactions. These registers are being analysed. It will take time to unearth the entire network. The amount cheated from these persons is likely to exceed Rs 1 crore” added the DCP. A case has been registered against all 12 accused and raids are being conducted to arrest Paras.
All the arrests were made at the call centre and the building has been shut. A total of 21 mobile phones, 29 registers and laptops have been seized from the centre.
The police are also questioning the building owner to ascertain details about the lease.