Mumbai Crime: Fake call centre headed by 20-year-old busted in Ghatkopar, 11 held

Somnath Das

A fake call centre that cheated people on the pretext of settling their unpaid loans has been busted in Ghatkopar and 11 people have been arrested by the police. The call centre had data of over one lakh people who have taken loans. The fraudsters would cheat people of small amounts and as such people wouldn't bother to register a complaint.

Computer CPUs seized from the call centre's office

Police got to investigating the case after Sunil Mhatre, 61, registered an FIR saying he had taken a loan from Bajaj Finance and Indiabulls and availed the moratorium facility during the lockdown. In November, he received a call saying he can close the Bajaj Finance loan account by paying a settlement amount.

Mhatre, who owed the company Rs 38,000, was asked to pay Rs 17,500 by the fake call centre as settlement. Since the amount was reduced by half, Mhatre agreed and the next day, a boy from the call centre picked up the cash from his residence. However, even several days after the payment, the amount did not get deducted from Mhatre's loan account and he filed a complaint.

"Apart from Bajaj Finance, the cheating call centre also discussed the settlement of the Indiabulls loan with me. But I did not pay for that one," Mhatre said. Assistant Police Inspector (API) Pandhri Kande traced the call centre, raided it on January 11 and arrested five men and six women. The seized electronics include six CPUs, one router, six mobile phones, 15 used SIM cards, 116 new ones and rubber stamps.

Money taken in cash
The masterminds of the scam have been identified as Somnath Vinay Das, 20, who used the aliases Raj Patel and Ravinath Nair. Das has studied till HSC and hails from Bangalore. A police officer said that Das has data of over one lakh people with balance loan amounts between R1 lakh and R1.5 lakh. The second main accused is Ketan Mishra, 19. The call centre employed only to make calls, two to go collect the cash.

The call centre had closed down in March amid the lockdown and resumed operations in September. A police officer from Shivaji Park police said, "Das has been given the data by a bank employee. We are trying to find out who that is." API Kande added, "Das used to collect the money only in cash. There's no money in his bank account. We are working on finding out how many people might have been cheated."

1L
No, of people whose loan details the mastermind had