The Delhi Police has busted a call centre, which was functioning under the guise of a finance company, and apprehended 18 persons for allegedly extorting money from people through a Chinese loan app, senior officers said on Friday.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Sagar Singh Kalsi said that the call centre was based in East of Kailash area and that while 17 employees of the call centre, including eight women, were detained, their team leader, Amit, a resident of Sarita Vihar, was arrested during a raid at the call centre. Prime accused, Mohsin Khan and his accomplices are still absconding, he added.
The investigation was launched in February by Cyber Police Station (North) based on a complaint from a resident of Majnu Ka Tila.
The police said that the group used to offer short term loans to users at “very low interest rates” through a Chinese mobile application called ‘Diolesce’. However, after giving the money through digital modes, they used to raise the interest rates exorbitantly.
Officers added that even after the repayment of the loan, the call centre executives used to demand more money from the borrowers or their relatives by threatening them in various ways like sharing their morphed pictures.
According to the DCP, a resident of Majnu Ka Tila had registered a complaint through the Cyber Crime Reporting Portal of the Ministry of Home Affairs alleging that he had received a call from a woman on February 25, who said that his daughter had taken a loan of Rs3,500 and demanded that the money be repaid through a link and threatened the complainant of circulating his daughter’s morphed pictures.
The complainant also told the police that after the call, he had also received an edited photo of his daughter on his WhatsApp with “XXXXX one night only 3000” written on it, along with his and his daughter’s phone number.
Based on the complaint, a case was registered at Cyber Police Station, North district on Tuesday and investigation was taken up.
Mr. Kalsi said that during the probe, the police zeroed in on the location of the alleged calling number through detail technical analysis of call detail records, money trail, and continuous surveillance of suspect mobile numbers.
After this, on Wednesday, the police conducted a raid in the area and apprehended one woman named Renu, who directed the police to the East of Kailash-situated call centre where she was working.
The officer said that based on the information provided by the woman, a team raided the location and found a proper call centre with about 50 employees working at the time. “On interrogation with the staff, it was found that half of the employees were working for prominent finance companies and under their cover the other employees were working on Chinese loan fraud apps,” he said.
“Total 17 people who were found working on the App have been apprehended. The Team leader/ manager, Amit, 28 was arrested and is presently on police remand. Raids are being conducted to nab Mohsin and his accomplices,” Mr. Kalsi said.
The DCP said that during the interrogation, Amit revealed that he and Khan used to work at EMI loan reminder call centres of some finance companies and due to less income, had started a call centre for fake Chinese loan recovery apps.
“Amit was deployed Leader/ Manager over the call centre and Mohsin Khan and his friend Firdaus used to provide the login ID and password for these fake Chinese apps. The call centre employees used to make calls through VOIP Sim Box Gateway devices installed by Khan, who used to change it frequently to dodge police action,” he said.
“Payments were made by the complainants at the link provided in the Chinese apps and Khan used to get his share from his seniors,” Mr. Kalsi said.
The DCP said that 54 computers, 19 mobile phones, two internet routers, and one server to operate multiple SIM cards on multiple systems were recovered in the raid.
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