DU graduate among two women held for running fake call centre, offering phony health insurance packages

The police identified the duo as Mangolpuri resident Suman Lata (33) and Palam Colony resident Jyoti (34), who goes by a single name,

Two women were arrested for allegedly running a fake call centre and duping over 350 people of over ₹50 lakh in the name of providing them low premium health insurance packages, said police.

Two women were arrested for allegedly running a fake call centre and duping over 350 people of over ₹50 lakh in the name of providing them low premium health insurance packages, said police.

The police identified the duo as Mangolpuri resident Suman Lata (33) and Palam Colony resident Jyoti (34), who goes by a single name. Police alleged that Lata was the mastermind behind the scam and that Jyoti led the team of half a dozen telemarketeers at the centre in Vikaspuri to call and cheat the customers.

According to police, the suspects had created three fake websites for selling their phony health plans and tricked the clients into remitting the premium amount through an inbuilt payment gateway of the websites. They allegedly procured databases of customers from various service providers and called them by posing as health insurance agents, said deputy commissioner of police (southwest) Devender Arya.

“The health packages that the arrested women offered covered the expenses of medical practitioners’ fee, diagnostic tests and medicines, operation theatre charges, and the cost of prosthetics and other devices or equipment if planted internally during surgical procedure along with ICU charges,” said Arya.

Police said the fake call centre was being run from a building in west Delhi’s Vikaspuri. Six computers and a pen drive used for storing database of clients, 13 mobile phones, 11 ATM cards and passbook of different banks have been seized from the arrested women, they said.

DCP Arya said that the arrests were made following an investigation into a cheating case filed a few weeks ago at the Sagarpur police station on the complaint of a man named Shibu Chakraborty. The complainant alleged that a woman named Priya, who introduced herself as an agent of a healthcare company, called and offered him a health insurance policy for ₹25,000 for his brother, a kidney patient who undergoes dialysis regularly.

“The caller knew about Chakraborty’s brother’s health condition. The plan she offered covered complete reimbursement of all the hospital expenses. Chakraborty paid the amount through the payment gateway of the website mentioned by the caller. He even got a confirmation letter that promised to pay off all medical bills within a week,” said Arya.

When Chabraborty did not receive any reimbursement, however, he tried contacting the company directly but found that its contact number and the website were disabled. He then approached the police.

Investigations into the case led police to the call centre. It was raided on Saturday and the two women were arrested, a senior officer in the district’s cyber cell said.

“An analysis of the computers revealed that the women had duped more than 350 people of over ₹50 lakh in the last 18 months. They had a database of thousands of potential customers who were to be contacted. The racketeers used SIM cards procured on forged documents to contact the client,” the officer cited above said.

Police said Lata completed her graduation from a Delhi University college, while Jyoti did her post-graduation in English from Himachal Pradesh University. Lata earlier worked as a tele-caller in healthcare service provider company. Both had good command over English and Hindi, said police.

“Since Lata was not earning well, she created fake websites, started a call centre and began cheating people by selling phony health related schemes. Jyoti joined her a year ago,” the officer added.