Seven call centre workers held for cheating 22 people

Seven people, all working in a call centre of an insurance company, were arrested by Mumbai police for allegedly cheating at least 22 people to the tune of several lakhs under the pretext of offering them extra bonus on their insurance policies, police said today.

The alleged fraud came to light after one Dr Rajshekhar Ujagare (70), a resident of suburban Mulund, approached the police with a complaint that he was cheated of Rs 4 lakh by unidentified persons who promised him extra bonus on his private insurance policy, a police official said.

Police registered a case under various sections of the IPC and under Information Technology Act and launched investigation.

During the probe, it came to light that unidentified persons had called up the complainant over his phone several times since September 2017.

The callers had details of the insurance policy of the complainant and its maturity date as well, the official said.

"As the callers had detailed information about the policy, the complainant thought they were genuine. The callers told the complainant that he was entitled to claim Rs 9.46 lakh bonus on his policy but had to pay the processing fees to claim it," according to the official.

During the period of the last ten months, the callers kept calling the complainant and raised the amount of "bonus" each time, he said, adding that the complainant deposited at least Rs 4 lakh in the bank accounts provided by the callers to claim the extra bonus.

However, he approached the police after he failed to get any amount.

During investigation, the police traced the callers to areas like Thane, Ghansoli in Navi Mumbai, and Guhagar in Ratnagiri and arrested them earlier this week, he said.

"Police seized cash worth Rs 1.69 lakh, 10 mobile phone handsets, 22 SIM cards, 14 debit cards, gold ornaments from the accused persons," said Akhilesh Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone-VII).

During their interrogation it came to light that all of them were working in a call centre of an insurance company and thus accessed data regarding the policy-holders, he said.

"The accused persons cheated at least 22 people from various parts of the state, as per investigation so far," the officer said.

The accused were produced before a court here which remanded them in police custody till June 1, he said, adding that further investigation is on.