Bhopal: Cyber police bust fake loan call centre, four held

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The City Cyber Police busted a fake loan call centre and arrested four accused from Gurugram, Haryana, an official said on Sunday.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Amit Kumar told Free Press that the action was taken following a complaint lodged by Kunal Ved, a resident of Bhopal in June 2021.

In the complaint, he told police that he had taken loan through a loan App and a few days later he had paid off his loan amount. But even after paying the loan amount one unidentified person started calling him and claimed that his loan amount was due. He had to pay the amount.

When Kunal refused to pay the amount, the caller started blackmailing him. The caller threatened that if he did not pay the amount, then he would send his morphed picture to his relatives and his friends.

The victim came in pressure and paid the amount of Rs 35000 to the accused, but the caller kept on harassing him. Following which, he filed the complaint to the police. The police registered the case under section 384 of IPC against the unknown person and started investigations.

The police form a trap and with the help of technical team, they came to know the operational place of the racket.

The police conducted the raid and arrested the four accused Shivkumar Singh, Mukesh Porwal, Kuldeep Singh and the kingpin Kapil Kumar (call centre director) from Gurugram, Haryana.

The police also seized four sim dialler box, 70 sim cards, one iPad, three laptops, one computer and 15 hard disks from the call centre.

Modus operandi

The four accused were using a China made software to siphon the mobile data. They were sending the links to the loan seekers and to the common people luring them to take the loan. As soon as the victim clicks on the links, the accused gets a key to get access to their phone contacts.

When a victim obtains a loan and pays it back, they did not give the loan payment certificate. Later, they ask more money. If one is not able to pay the installments and demands more time to pay the amount, they humiliate the victim and blackmail them by sending threat messages.