HYDERABAD: This was no Nigerian Lottery Trick, it was Noida Loan Trick with a twist. People with poor credit history would be approached on phone and promised quick disbursal of loan. Then a request would be made for a processing fee. Once that was deposited, forget the loan, even the phone number would stop working. Nearly 500 people fell for this trick, according to the Cyber Crime police of Central Crime Station, Hyderabad, who cracked open the case after a week-long investigation.
The gang reportedly collected Rs 10 crore by the time their game was up. According to police, Syed Qutubuddin, resident of Azampura lodged a complaint with CCP on August 28, stating that he was lured by a tele-caller to avail a loan at a cheaper rate. He had submitted a loan proposal to Yogesh Jindal of Noida.
He paid Rs 5,80,000 on various pretexts for a loan of Rs 20 lakh and then the phone line went dead. Police registered a case and took up investigation.
“The cyber crime police collected leads by working out the call data records of the callers to the victim and the location of the offenders appeared to be near Delhi. A special team visited Delhi and worked out further clues and located the suspects. Police arrested three offenders at their office in Gurgaon,’’ said Police Commissioner M Mahender Reddy.
The accused are -- Mahipal Singh Yadav, a resident of Gurgaon and owner, Vimal Arora, 21, tele caller, resident of Delhi, Shanthanu Kumar, 28, resident of Vaishali, Delhi.
Two more accused: Sandeep Juneja and Rakesh Sharma are absconding. The accused, Mahipal Singh Yadav, discontinued BA (Journalism) and started working in various call centers and gained expertise in mobilising customers in insurance and banking from 2005 till 2012.
Later, in 2013, he started My Invest Guruji along with Rakesh Sharma. Starting with four employees, he expanded to seven team leaders and 40 tele-callers.
Victims Everywhere StateVictims
AP & Telangana118
Karnataka257
Maharashtra75
West Bengal31
Other States41
Total522
The team leaders would provide SIM cards to all the callers in the morning and collect them back in the evening. The tele-callers would make calls by obtaining mobile numbers randomly through Google Search. If someone showed interest for availing a loan, the tele-caller would note down details and Value Card would send fake loan approvals in the name of Value Finvest Finance Pvt., Ltd., and ask them to send money ranging from Rs 15,000 to Rs 1,00,000 to process the loan through cheques to an address in Noida. After cashing the cheques, the amount was shared between Mahipal Singh Yadav and Sandeep Juneja.