Four held for duping woman of 63 lakh

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police arrested four men for duping a retired school principal, Sarla Dudeja, of Rs 63 lakh on the pretext of paying for an insurance policy for

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police arrested four men for duping a retired school principal, Sarla Dudeja, of Rs 63 lakh on the pretext of paying for an insurance policy for over of two and a half years.

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Police suspect the four may have conned many others through their office in East Delhi. Police said the kingpin of the gang, Taufiq, is a Jamia Millia Islamia graduate. Taufiq reportedly worked at a call centre.

Investigating officials said Taufiq arranged the data of the customers through his contacts and misused it to con them.

The three told police that he arranged data and infrastructure for his team mates.

Police said that a year ago Sarla, a resident of Shalimar Bagh, reported to the police about the men who had called her from different numbers asking her to transfer the money for an insurance policy. She told Delhi Police that the men directed her to transfer her money, in the name of her late husband. She told police that in two and a half years, she had transferred ` 63 lakh to 17 different bank accounts through NEFT.

DCP North West Vijay Singh said that a special team was formed to investigate the case as the women had been repeatedly conned since 2013.

“It was a bit challenging for us as it involved 17 banks with 25 mobile numbers. During investigation, it was found that all the phone numbers were registered on fake addresses and most of them stopped working long time ago but there was a possible clue about the culprits. Most accounts were on fake names and addresses,” said Singh.

During further investigation it was revealed that the latest calls were being received from Laxmi Nagar. Police suspected that it came from a call centre. It became a bit difficult for Delhi Police to track the so many call centres. Singh said that on Monday, they received a tip-off about the gang members who were operating from a building in Laxmi Nagar. Police laid a trap and arrested the four men — Taufiq, Azhar, Humayun and Arun.