A fraudulent loan scam operated from a fake call center in Noida has been uncovered by police, resulting in the arrest of eleven individuals, including nine women. The scam, running for over a year from a building in Noida’s Sector 51 market, was orchestrated by two former life insurance agents, Ashish and Jitendra.
They lured victims from outside Delhi-NCR with promises of high returns on fake insurance policies and loans, using phone data purchased online for just Rs. 2,500.
The call center employed nine women as executives to cold-call potential victims, selling them these fraudulent financial products. The gang acquired SIM cards using illegally obtained Aadhaar cards to conceal their identities during their operations. The scheme operated on a commission basis, incentivizing employees based on the number of people they deceived.
Victims’ money was funneled into a Punjab National Bank account rented for Rs. 10,000 per month from Arvind in Karnataka. Ashish and Jitendra withdrew the funds using debit cards in Noida. A police raid uncovered a black diary maintained by Ashish, documenting financial transactions from the scam, which generated crores of rupees over the course of a year.
The operation was dismantled in a joint effort by the Crime Response Team (CRT) and local Sector 49 police station officials during a raid on Friday. DCP Shakti Mohan Avasthy confirmed that a similar scam case had been filed against the accused in Ranchi.
“Ashish and Jitendra initiated this fraudulent activity after their tenure with SBI Life Insurance in 2019. They purchased data on approximately 10,000 individuals from India Mart for Rs. 2,500 and began contacting people across India, deceiving them with false promises of loans and insurance,” DCP Avasthy stated.
Key accused Ashish Kumar alias Amit and Jitendra Verma alias Abhishek, along with the nine women executives, namely Nisha alias Sneha, Reju alias Divya, Lovely Yadav alias Sweta, Poonam alias Pooja, Aarti Kumari alias Ananya, Kajal Kumari alias Surti, Sarita alias Suman, Babita Patel alias Mahi, and Garima Chauhan alias Sonia, have been arrested. An FIR has been filed under provisions of the newly-enacted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and all accused individuals have been remanded to judicial custody.
