MUMBAI: The crime branch officials on Thursday night busted three fake call centres operating from Jogeshwari and Goregaon areas and arrested 36 people, including eight women, who duped Indian citizens convincing them to pay loan processing fee and cheated foreign nationals by selling them banned sexual stimulant drugs like Viagra.
The first raid was conducted in the Royal Palms area of Aarey colony where the police found that the employees were calling random people by posing as representatives of reputed banks and attempting to dupe them by charging processing fee for disbursing loans. “They collected ₹1,475 each from over 3,000 people (in all, ₹44,25,000),” said an officer.
Deputy commissioner of police Vishal Singh of the crime branch said that the first and second cases related to loan processing fee fraud came to light after a Goregaon resident, retired from a government job, approached the crime branch alleging that people working in a call centre took processing fees twice from him in the last two years, promising him personal loan, but they did not disburse the loan amount.
A police team from Unit 12 conducted an inquiry and learnt that an unauthorised finance company named Dhan Suvidha Finance was operating from the Royal Palm area at Aarey colony, Goregaon East, said police inspector Navnath Jagtap of Unit 12 of the crime branch. The main accused, Rahul Manjrekar, 35, was running a call centre where 33 people, including 16 men were working and they used to call customers posing as bank employees promising people to provide personal loans and business loans.
The accused charge processing fees of ₹1,475 in advance and promise to help the victims to get personal loans even if they lack documents or have weak CIBIL scores. The accused mostly target people outside the state so once they learn about their modus, they could not file a complaint. They also charge less amount thinking that the people would not approach the police for just ₹1,475 and once they get money, they disconnect the person and do not answer their call. The police have seized 33 mobile phones, 4 monitors and CPUs, routers and a laptop, said Jagtap.
Manjrekar lives in Santacruz, and he is a commerce graduate. He had earlier worked in a call centre so he was aware of the functioning and ways to dupe vulnerable people. “We have arrested 16 men and 8 women in the case while the rest of the nine women are aged between 18 to 20 and so we have sent them notices. All the accused are residents of western suburbs, said Jagtap. Few of them were working on payment while some of them were on 35% commission. As per the records found, the frauds have duped a total of 3,000 Indian citizens. The police have applied for a section of the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors Act (MPID) as the accused have duped people taking the names of reputed banks and financial institutions, said Jagtap.
The other call centre was being operated from a commercial space in Behram Bagh in Jogeshwari West where the frauds were duping foreign nationals on the pretext of selling them medicines like Viagra, Cialis and Levitra which treat erectile dysfunction, and Tramadol which treats severe pain. All these medicines are banned in India. The frauds would take orders in US Dollars, said Thakur.
“We are finding out if the medicines were sent to the victims at all, if yes, then which company had produced them,” added Thakur.
In both the call centres the police have registered a case in Oshiwara police station and a total 12 people have been arrested. The police have seized 12 computers, laptops, hard disks, two mobile phones etc. added the officer.
