Four held for running fake call centre, duping journalist of ₹50 lakh

Four men who used a fake call centre to dupe an 88-year-old journalist of Rs 50 lakh on the pretext of investment in insurance policies have been arrested, police said.

The crime came to light recently when Greater Kailashresident Sangeeta Manjul realised that money was regularly being withdrawn from her elderly father’s account.

Her father, DR Ahuja, is a veteran journalist and lives alone in Greater Kailash. He owns accounts in multiple banks and his daughter is a joint holder in some of these accounts.

“Her father was unwell recently and when she went to visit him, he asked her to deposit a cheque in the bank. She got the summary of account updated and was shocked to see that there have been multiple withdrawals of large amounts from his bank accounts in the last two years,” said Romil Baaniya, DCP (south-east).

The beneficiaries of these withdrawals were different persons who had allegedly defrauded her father. The people posed as representatives of insurance companies and promised her father unbelievable returns on his investment.

The fraudsters had been in touch with the man only over phone. The aged man could probably not understand the scheme.

“Whenever they asked him to deposit the amount, he would comply and kept issuing cheques in their favour to earn handsome returns on his money lying idle in banks. These people have succeeded in duping the man to the tune of more than ₹50 lakh of his hard earned money,” said the DCP.

Once the police began their probe, they found that the money was transferred to nine accounts in different parts of the country such as Noida, Kanpur and Gwalior. Some of the accounts were found to be opened using addresses that did not exist.

But technical surveillance of the phone numbers the victim received calls from and some of the bank account details led to the arrest of four suspects. Police said they ran a fake call centre to dupe people.

“Pravesh Kasana is the mastermind of the racket and was the owner of the call centre. He employed young boys and girl at the centre. Kasana gave them a database of affluent account holders. They were instructed to call the prospective victims and promise huge profits within a short period if they invested in certain schemes,” said the DCP.