8 held for cheating man with easy loan offer

Kolkata: Eight persons were arrested here on Friday for cheating a man by offering him a loan at low interest rates.

According to police, in March, a person lodged a complaint stating that he has been duped by some people who offered him a loan worth Rs six lakh. The accused persons had called up the victim and convinced him to avail the loan.

After he agreed on the terms and conditions, the victim was asked to pay Rs 1.08 lakh as processing fee, administrative costs and loan documentation fee.

He was asked to deposit the amount in two bank accounts. To get the loan, the man transferred the money on the bank accounts provided by the alleged dupers through two cheques. However, after several days passed but he did not get the loan.

When he contacted those persons who had called him to get his money back, they allegedly did not give him any response. Later, he lodged a complaint at the Ekbalpore police station. The case was taken up by the Cyber Crime Cell of Kolkata Police.

While probing the case, police officers found that there was a group of several people, who randomly called up people to provide loan at a nominal rate of interest. When the victim used to credit the money, the accused persons withdrew the amount from ATM counters.

During the investigation, sleuths traced the mobile numbers and also got in touch with the bank branch where victim's money was credited. Police gathered information from the bank and found that every time a big sum of money was credited it was immediately withdrawn through ATM counters.

Police also got in touch with the ATM section of the concerned banks which were being used to withdraw the money to get hold of the CCTV footage.

While checking the footage, it was found that those persons who were withdrawing money from ATM counters were different from the bank account holders as per the photos in the bank's database.

It was also noticed that the dupers were using a few specific ATM counters in and around Chinar Park near Rajarhat to withdraw the money. After getting the pictures of the accused persons from the CCTV footage, sleuths started keeping a strict vigil on the ATM counters in and around Chinar Park. On Thursday morning, one of the suspect was seen in Chinar Park area and was immediately nabbed by the officers. During interrogation, the accused person said he belonged to a group that ran a call centre at Sector V in Salt Lake to cheat people. They also had a hideout in Chinar Park area, he said.

The police team raided the flat at Chinar Park and the office in Salt Lake. In total, eight persons were arrested from both the locations. This apart, ten mobile phones and a debit card were seized. The office in Salt Lake and the flat in Chinar Park have been sealed by the police. It is suspected that the accused had duped several people of crores of rupees.