In possibly the first incident of its kind, a recovery agent posing as a senior police officer, called up an on-duty constable (beat marshal), gave him an address with instructions to immediately reach the house and get him connected to the borrower. The incident has been reported from the D’cunha Street area in Bhayandar (west).
In his statement to the police, the 30-year-old complainant who works in a private firm has said that he had availed a loan of Rs. 3.59 lakh from a well-known finance company in 2019. The complainant claims of having paid the equated monthly installments (EMI) on a regular basis till he lost his job due to the pandemic-induced lockdown in 2020, following which recovery agents started harassing him and his family for repayment.
Last month, two uniformed beat marshals came to his house in his absence and asked the complainant’s mother to speak to an officer who claimed to be an assistant police inspector (API). After threatening the family members to repay the loan or face action, the impersonator posing as API with the speaker phone on, directed the beat marshals to send a police jeep to their house if they failed to pay up till evening. After returning home the complainant learnt about the incident and enquired about the API, but it turned out that there was no such officer as introduced by the impersonator.
“It emerged that the impersonator had managed to get the number of the newly recruited beat marshal and tricked him to make believe that he was a senior police officer. Investigations were on to identify the recovery agents behind the calls. They will be behind the bars soon,” said a senior police officer.
Meanwhile, an offence under sections 170, 182 and 506 of the IPC was registered against the accused on Sunday. However, no arrests have been made so far. Such tactics are against the law as there are legal ways to recover money from borrowers.
