DU graduate, telecaller among 3 held for duping people by offering loans at 0% interest

Police said one of the accused Manoj Kumar studied BCA from a college in Uttar Pradesh and worked as a telecaller at an insurance company. The other, Rahul Sharma, completed his BA from Delhi University in 2017.

Delhi Police last week arrested three persons for allegedly cheating people on the pretext of providing loans at nil interest.

Delhi Police have arrested three persons for cheating people on the pretext of offering loans at zero percent interest. (Getty Images/ Representative Image)

Police said that in July, a man named Raghav Ram from West Patel Nagar, alleged that he got a call from a representative allegedly of a leading bank and offered him a loan at 0% interest rate. The complainant said he agreed to take the loan as he was in need of money.

“The caller then asked Ram his PAN card and Aadhar number which he provided. Thereafter, the caller asked Ram to pay ₹10,000 as security money for sanctioning a loan of ₹5 lakh. The complainant alleged that the caller duped him up to a tune of ₹1.44 lakh in six different transactions on the one pretext of getting him the loan,” said additional commissioner of police (crime) Ajit Singla.

Singla said that a few days later when Ram tried to call the “loan officer”, his phone was switched off. He contacted the bank and on sensing that something was wrong, Ram approached police and lodged a complaint.

“During investigation, the police checked call records and with the help of continuous surveillance, zeroed in on two men - Manoj Kumar and Rahul Sharma. We found that the two were running a fake call centre in Kirti Nagar Industrial area. A raid was conducted at the call centre on November 14 and both were arrested. Thirty-two mobile phones and 28 SIM cards, procured on fake IDs were recovered from the possession of accused persons and from their fake call centre,” Singla said.

During interrogation, both the accused disclosed that they used to get SIM cards issued on fake Identity from one Tarun Rastogi for the purpose of calling people with the motive of cheating. “Last Sunday, Rastogi, who lives in Krishna Nagar, was also arrested. Two mobile phones and 13 SIM cards were recovered from him,” the additional commissioner said.

Police said, while Manoj Kumar studied BCA from a college in Uttar Pradesh and worked as a telecaller at an insurance company, Rahul Sharma completed his BA from Delhi University in 2017. In January, 2018 Kumar started a company with the name of MR Solution, which used to call the people to provide the loan. Kumar came into the contact with Sharma and started duping people on the pretext of providing them loan. They then roped in Rastogi, a class nine dropout, who used to sell SIM Cards and used these to make calls to remain untraced, police said.