Sham call centre busted in north Delhi; three masterminds arrested: Police

New Delhi, Dec 15 (PTI) The Delhi Police on Monday claimed to have busted a sham call centre in north Delhi allegedly involved in cheating people across the country by luring them with fraudulent insurance policies, an official said.

Police said that they arrested three alleged masterminds and apprehended 29 telecallers, including 23 women and six men.

"The illegal call centre was unearthed during an operation carried out under Operation CyHawk 2.0, a special drive aimed at dismantling organised cybercrime networks," DCP (North) Raja Banthia said in a statement.

According to police, the action followed a tip-off received on December 9 about a suspicious call centre operating from a house in the Shastri Nagar area. During the raid, police found several men and women making calls to prospective customers.

"On noticing the police team, the callers immediately disconnected the calls, raising suspicion," the DCP said.

The owner of the premises and the alleged mastermind of the operation was identified as Nazar Abbas (39).

When asked to produce any licence or permission to run a call centre, he failed to provide any document, according to police.

During interrogation, Abbas allegedly revealed that the group procured data of the people whose insurance policies had either lapsed, stopped or matured.

The victims were then contacted and misled with offers of lucrative new insurance policies, benefits on old or defaulted policies and refunds of agent commissions.

"Once a customer showed interest, the telecallers would forward the details to Abbas and two supervisors -- Ravi (30) and Vicky Thakur (22) -- who would further persuade the victims and send them online payment links," Banthia said.

Investigators said Abbas, in connivance with Ravi and Vicky, had been running the fake call centre for the past six months. They had hired 29 telecallers -- 23 women and six men -- most of them in the age group of 18 to 28 years, to carry out the fraud.

During the search of the premises, the team recovered 45 mobile phones fitted with SIM cards obtained on fake addresses, one laptop, an attendance register, four handwritten customer information registers, a bank cheque book and cash amounting to Rs 3.5 lakh.

"An analysis of the seized mobile phones revealed that several of the numbers were linked to complaints already registered on the pan-India cybercrime reporting portal, indicating that victims from different parts of the country had been targeted by the racket," the DCP said, adding that an FIR has been registered and further investigation into the matter is underway.

Police said all three alleged masterminds -- Abbas, Ravi and Vicky -- were arrested.

The telecallers include residents from various parts of Delhi, such as Shalimar Bagh, Subzi Mandi, Burari, Malka Ganj, Nand Nagri, Uttam Nagar and Chandni Chowk.

According to police, at least five complaints registered on the cybercrime portal have already been found to be directly linked to the phones and operations of the busted call centre. PTI BM PRK PRK