Delhi: Fake call centre dupes people of Rs 1 cr, 3 arrested

New Delhi: Three men were arrested for allegedly running a fake call centre and duping several people of about Rs one crore on the pretext of lucrative insurance plan at pan India level, police said here on Sunday.

The fraud was initiated by opening bank accounts on forged identity at various cities including Lucknow, Hardoi, Noida in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, the police said. With their arrest, data of 25,000 customers and other documents were seized, they said.

Abhey Kishore (32), Alok Kumar (26) and Hardeep Singh (20) were arrested while efforts are being made to nab two other accused Sudesh Kumar and Himanshu.

Kishore earlier worked with ICICI Lombard, Bajaj Allianze but in 2014 he started Motor and health Insurance Company at Janak Puri where he sustained loss and to cover the loss he has started a fake call centre, the police said.

According to police, in July this year, a senior citizen reported at Safdarjung Enclave police station that, three persons namely Durgesh, Ria and Pushpender who impersonated as employees of Bajaj Capital company assured him that if he buy a policy from ICICI Prudential by making payment of Rs 27,500, they will settle his previous insurance claim of Rs 1.35 lakhs by giving bonus.

On their request, the complainant made payment of Rs 27,500 in two instalments in a Bank Of Baroda account but after paying the amount, the accused stopped picking up his calls.

During investigation it came into notice that accused opened 15 fake accounts at different banks.

Further a tip-off was received that, the accused were residing in Vishal Garden area, subsequently trap was laid and Kishore was arrested, Deputy Commissioner of Police (southwest) Devender Arya said.

During enquiry it was revealed that the call centre was set up by Kishore and his wife Priti and in total eight persons were involved in this syndicate.

Later, Alok and Hardeep were also arrested. Preeti and another lady employee Suman were also interrogated, the officer said.

Further it was revealed that they used to dupe the victims in the name of lucrative insurance benefits/bonus.

For this purpose accused persons has started a fake call centre. They established a crime syndicate operating at national level and had succeeded in duping victims of about one crore rupees.

Sudesh used to operate these fake accounts and their associate Himanshu used to provide data to employee of fake call centre.

Once payment made by the victims in their given account Sudesh used to pay 70 per cent to Kishore while he retained 30 per cent of the amount, police said. Further a target of Rs one lakh was assigned to each telecaller and if the target is achieved then extra commission of 3 per cent was given to him, the DCP said.

They had even earlier started a fake call centre at Dehradun and were arrested by the Dehradun police, the official said.