Loan fraud: ‘Call centre’ owners among three held for duping British citizens

The Delhi Police Special Cell has arrested two owners of an "illegal" call centre and another man for allegedly cheating British citizens by promising them unsecured loans and routing money to India through "hawala" transfers.

Following a complaint from the British High Commission in Delhi, police arrested Yasheen Nagpal and Rajan Bhayana, owners of Max Infotech in Pitampura. Their accomplice, Saurabh Gupta, was picked up from Rohini for allegedly supplying the call centre owners personal data of many British citizens.

Police said the call centre owners used to purchase and source data about British citizens who had applied for loans in UK-based banks and financial institutions.

After picking the targets, the call centre would call the Britons via VoIP and ask them about their loan requirements. They would be lured by depositing one installment of the "sanctioned", unsecured loan and later asked to deposit money through Internet transfer as "processing fee".

Police claimed that the men would ask the British citizens to deposit the "processing fee" in the UK and provide a U-KASH voucher for Internet-based money transfer.

These vouchers were then sold to foreign buyers online and the amount would be transferred to a "liberty reserve account" from which it would be received by the men in Delhi through "hawala" operators.

The complaint from the British mission was based on a fraud detected by the Serious Organised Crimes Agency (SOCA) in the UK, which was conducting an investigation into the loan fraud through U-KASH vouchers.

The Special Cell is now trying to find out how confidential data from UK banks and financial institutions were stolen.

It is also investigating if the racket involves more people.

Max Infotech is an illegal call centre, police told the court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Manish Yaduvanshi on Wednesday.

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