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Noida: Eleven people, including nine women, were arrested in Noida in Uttar Pradesh for cheating hundreds of people in a multi-crore loan scam running from a fake call centre here.
The call centre has been operated by two former life insurance policy agents at a building in Noida's Sector 51 market for over a year.
The gang lured people offering high returns on loans and insurance policies.
Ashish and Jitendra, identified as the masterminds behind the scam, hired nine women for the role of call centre executives. It was their duty to call people and sell them them policies.
Using fake Aadhaar cards, the gang bought SIM cards which they used to hide their identities.
The centre, according to NDTV, functioned on commission offering more money on the basis of the number people was lured in.
The money from the victims was received in a Punjab National Bank account rented from a man named Arvind in Karnataka.
Ashish and Jitendra withdrew money using debit cards in Noida.
During the raid at the centre, police seized a diary which revealed details of financial transaction running to crores of rupees.
A joint operation by the Crime Response Team (CRT) and the local Sector 49 police station officials led to the discovery of the scam, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Shakti Mohan Avasthy said.
"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 pretense of offering loans and insurance," he was quoted as saying.
The nine women arrested in the case are identified as Nisha alias Sneha, Reju alias Divya, Lovely Yadav alias Sweta, Poonam alias Pooja, Aarti Kumari alias Ananya, Kajal Kumari alias Surti, Sarita alias Suman, Babita Patel alias Mahi, and Garima Chauhan alias Sonia.
An First Information Report (FIR) is filed under the newly-enacted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.