Three Delhi youth arrested for defrauding 60,000 Britons of £10 million
15 Jan 2013
The Delhi police have arrested three persons who operated a call centre and allegedly cheated 60,000 Britons of £10 million (about Rs90 crore) over a period of eight months, while promising them loans.
Yasheen Nagpal and Rajat Bayana, part of a gang that included a Turk and a Briton, would call up people in the UK who had been classified as 'loan defaulters' and were not eligible to get loans.
They would promise them loans without any guarantees, but would ask them for small sums ranging from Rs8,000 to Rs20,000 for processing the papers. Most paid up as they had no chances of getting loans from banks in the UK.
The duo operated from a call centre they set up in Pitampura in north-west Delhi. The police have also arrested one Saurabh Gupta, an associate of theirs, who helped get the names of British defaulters from a website.
All three have been lodged at the Tihar jail and have been charged under various sections of the IT Act for cheating and forgery.
The Delhi police were informed by the British High Commission in the capital, alerting them about an online fraud scheme. Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency has also been working closely with the Delhi police in unraveling the scam.