With just ₹2,500, phone data was purchased online and it was used to trick hundreds of victims in a multi-crore loan scam operated out of a fictitious contact centre in Noida, the police confirmed. Eleven individuals, comprising nine females, were taken into custody for peddling fraudulent loans and insurance plans.
For more than a year, the call center—which was manned by two former life insurance policy agents—was housed on the fourth floor of a building in the Sector 51 market of Noida. According to police, the gang used the promise of large profits on loans and insurance products to entice people from beyond Delhi-NCR.
Ashish and Jitendra, the masterminds of the scam, employed nine women to pose as call center executives and make sales to potential customers about these plans. The group used illicitly obtained fictitious Aadhaar cards to purchase SIM cards.
Their identities were concealed as they preyed on gullible people using these SIM cards. The organization operated on a commission basis, meaning that the more individuals you managed to bring in, the more money you made.
The money acquired from the scam victims was deposited into a Punjab National Bank account, which was rented for ₹10,00 per month from a man in Karnataka by the name of Arvind. After that, Jitendra and Ashish will each take out debit cards in Noida to get the money.
Following a police raid, Ashish’s black diary was discovered. Every financial transaction in the year-long scam that brought in crores of rupees was documented in the journal.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Shakti Mohan Avasthy stated that the was raided on Friday in a cooperative operation by the Crime Response Team (CRT) and the local Sector 49 police station officers.
He further mentioned that a case for a similar scam had been brought against him in Ranchi.
“Ashish and Jitendra started this fraudulent activity after working for SBI Life Insurance in 2019. They bought data of about 10,000 people from India Mart for ₹ 2,500 and began calling people across India, defrauding them under the pretence of offering loans and insurance,” he added.
Ashish Kumar, also known as Amit, and Jitendra Verma, also known as Abhishek, were recognized by the police as the main culprit. Nisha alias Sneha, Lovely Yadav alias Sweta, Reju alias Divya, Poonam alias Pooja, Aarti Kumari alias Ananya, Kajal Kumari alias Surti, Sarita alias Suman, Babita Patel alias Mahi, and Garima Chauhan alias Sonia are the nine women that were arrested.
In accordance with the recently adopted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, a First Information Report (FIR) has been filed in this matter, and all of the accused have been placed under judicial custody.
