500 people duped, STF arrests mastermind from Lucknow

LUCKNOW:UP Special Task Force (STF) arrested the mastermind of call centre, being run to dupe people, in Lucknow, on Friday. STF is claiming to have unearthed a racket involved in cheating over 500 people by posing as insurance company agents in past one year.

The accused was operating three call centres including two in Lucknow and one in New Delhi, STF officials said.

Acting senior superintendent of police (SSP), STF, Vishal Vikram Singh said the accused identified as Aman Kumar was arrested from his hideout in Lucknow’s Vibhuti Khand area where he was hiding after raid at his New Delhi based call centre in February earlier this year.

He said that the accused was operating two call centres at Vibhuti Khand and Indira Nagar localities of Lucknow.

Singh said the callers at these call centres used to contact people who have taken policies from the insurance companies after getting their details from different data providers. The

callers used to target people by posing as insurance agents and they used to offer them to provide bonus amount on depositing premium amounts through them in different bank accounts, acting SSP added.

Singh said the accused himself had worked in call centres of different insurance companies for over five years between 2014 and 2019 and learned the trick to convince people over phone. The accused taught the same trick to others employees in his

call centres.

“As per a rough estimate, the accused would have duped over ₹ 5 crore from at least 500 people in past one year,” he added.

He said the accused is being further quizzed to extract details of other people associated with the racket.

“We are also trying to get the bank accounts seized that were being operated by the mastermind to get back hard earned money of the investors,” he emphasised.