Intl loan racket busted

conducted from here was busted today with the arrest of six persons who allegedly cheated people from the UK and US by offering them loans, police said.

Accused Atiq Ababs, Syed Abdul Basith, Niranjan Reddy along with three of their associates had opened four offices in different localities here and defrauded people from the UK and US by promising to sanction loans for them if they paid certain charges, Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anurag Sharma told reporters.

The accused used to collect data of those looking to obtain loans from their sources in UK through one Simran Veer Singh of Delhi and some others from Pune, Sharma said.

Once the data was received here, the staff would call up loan seekers pretending to be call centre employees of a financial institution and trap them, the Police Chief said, adding, the people seeking loan were then asked to pay fee ranging from 120 to 210 Pounds or USD 200 or more depending on the loan amount.

"They were promised that their loans would be sanctioned within half-an-hour after depositing 'fee' in particular bank accounts. However, the loan was never granted and the customers were again asked to make more payments for approval of the loans," Sharma explained.

The accused were engaged in this fraud since October 2011 and police seized 80 computers from their offices here, he said.

They had employed over 30 staff who were given an alternative western name and told to speak to loan seekers in western accent on VOIP as if they were calling from UK/US and they were collecting around 40,000 Pounds per month from UK and over USD 1,50,000 per month from the US, the CP said.

"The accused will be interrogated further as we want to gather details about their bank accounts and involvement of other accused," Sharma added.