2 held for duping people with lucrative offers

During the investigation, police found out that the bank accounts were made on fake IDs but one of the e-mail addresses mentioned in the account opening form was still operational and the cheated money was withdrawn through cheques and ATMs, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) BK Singh said. Based on the intelligence collected, Neetu was arrested and a mobile phone used to access the e-mail was recovered from her.

Two persons were arrested for allegedly duping people on the pretext of giving them insurance bonus and other lucrative offers, police said on Saturday. The accused have been identified as Brij Bhushan Sharma, 34, and his associate Neetu Pathak, 32, both residents of Uttar Pradesh's Modi Nagar, the police said. According to police, Brij worked at a call centre as a telecaller. It was between 2013 and 2014 when he decided to start a fake call centre along with his associates Dushyant Bhardwaj, Krishan Sharma, Saurabh and Neetu Pathak.

Brij rented an office in Ghaziabad and the gang created two fake companies by the name of PR Infra and KMI Services. They cheated many people on the pretext of giving them insurance bonus and lucrative offers. After police launched a hunt for them, they disbanded the gang in 2016. However, Brij and Neetu continued cheating people together.  In the same year, an Army personnel complained to police that the accused promised him better returns on an insurance scheme for which he had invested Rs 25,07,260. The money was deposited in the various account of different banks and the accused vanished with the amount.

On the direction of the Delhi High Court, further investigation of the case was transferred to the Crime Branch in March 2019, police said. During the investigation, police found out that the bank accounts were made on fake IDs but one of the e-mail addresses mentioned in the account opening form was still operational and the cheated money was withdrawn through cheques and ATMs, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) BK Singh said.

Based on the intelligence collected, Neetu was arrested and a mobile phone used to access the e-mail was recovered from her. Thereafter, Brij was also nabbed. Many fake PAN and voter IDs have been recovered from the two, he said. During interrogation, Neetu told police that she is part of a syndicate and her job was to prepare forged documents like voter IDs. Based on forged documents, she used to apply for PAN cards. She also carried a separate mobile phone for this purpose, the officer said.  Brij would call the victims and lure them with offers, he said.

Efforts are being made to trace the remaining accused who were part of the gang, the police said..