Four men were arrested for allegedly duping people on the pretext of providing cheap loans, police said on Thursday. The accused were identified as Kuldeep Mishra, Rajan Tiwari, Manish, and Vinod Paswan. The police received a complaint on July 21.
The complainant, Harsh, who had a private job and was pursuing his BCA, alleged that he received a call on July 13 regarding an interest-free loan to be given by a finance company from its Lajpat Nagar branch, a senior police officer said.
The complainant also received a loan application form on WhatsApp, the police said.
"After all necessary communications, they demanded money as commission and several taxes for clearing the loan of Rs seven lakh. The complainant transferred around Rs 1.5 lakh. After receiving the money, the accused switched off their mobile phones," police official Vijayanta Arya said.
A case was registered and the accused were arrested following technical surveillance from Sultanpuri on Wednesday evening, the DCP said.
The probe revealed that the accused had set up a call centre in New Multan Nagar around a month-and-a-half ago, the police said.
The accused initially targeted people in Uttar Pradesh, but did not get a good response, and subsequently, started targeting people in Delhi. They used to open bank accounts on the basis of fake identification papers and addresses, the police said.
