Woman and her accomplice arrested for duping people on the pretext of providing cheap loans

A woman and her accomplice were arrested for allegedly posing as representatives of a finance firm and duping people on the pretext of providing them loans at low interest rates, police said Wednesday.

The accused, identified as Preeti Chauhan (28) and Manoj Pal Singh (23) were residents of Shahdara. They were nabbed on Tuesday from a house in Rohini, police said.

The matter came to light after Sanjay Garg, a resident of Rajouri Garden reported to the police that he was duped of Rs 65,000.

Chauhan used to make phone calls to victims using various alias like "Laxmi Gupta" or "Radhika".

On April 4, Garg received a phone call from her and was offered a loan of Rs 10 lakh against his HDFC bank insurance policy.

Since Garg wanted to expand his business, he agreed, police said.

"Garg was first asked to deposit 10 per cent of the loan, which the accused claimed was refundable within 24 hours. He refused to deposit Rs one lakh but later deposited Rs 65,000 in the bank account provided by Chauhan," said Monika Bhardwaj, Deputy Commissioner of Police (West).

Investigations revealed that the cheated amount was transferred into a bank account registered on a Moti Nagar address and the SIM cards used to call the victim was also found registered on fake IDs, the DCP said.

Further investigations revealed that the accused were operating from Budh Vihar in Rohini and Shahdara, the officer said.

The accused stole data of various nationalized insurance companies and used them to induce clients, the officer added.

During interrogation, Preeti disclosed that she lured clients after introducing herself as an officer or executive of a reputed finance company and asked them to deposit money in various fake bank accounts, the officer said.

Besides Garg, the accused had duped several people, police said, adding that raids were on to nab the other accused involved in the network.