Twelve persons, including six women, have been arrested for allegedly operating a fake call centre posing as a medicine supply store in west Delhi’s Uttam Nagar. The gang cheated over 1,700 people in the name of providing them loans, the police said on Wednesday.
The case came to light when the police received information about an illegal call centre running at Udhyan Road in Uttam Nagar, which was cheating people on the pretext of providing loans. It was allegedly run by Faisal, a resident of Ghaziabad, and his team members who were all arrested from the spot, the police said.
When the police reached the call centre, Faisal tried to mislead them by claiming that the place was being used for selling medicines and even showed them some medicines on a counter. On sustained interrogation, he revealed that all the employees were involved in posing as customer support agents and offering loans in exchange for paying a processing fee in a bank account, the police said.
“Paras, the prime accused who took the place on lease where the illegal call centre was running, is currently absconding and efforts are on to nab him. Three other accused who used to provide back-end services like bank account for collecting the money, are also absconding,” said DCP (Dwarka) Harsh Vardhan.
A case under IPC sections pertaining to cheating and forgery was lodged at the Bindapur police station. “During investigation, it surfaced that the call centre was running since February and the inquiry conducted so far revealed that more than 1,700 people and a total of 29 registers containing a list of contacted persons detailing money or the amount of transactions were recovered. The amount cheated by these persons is likely to exceed ₹1 crore,” an officer said.
