UP police have busted a gang which was extorting people in the name of providing small loans. The accused were extorting people by running fake call centres in Gurugram and Noida. They have disbursed micro-loans to around one lakh people across India, police said. The four arrested accused were dummy directors, shareholders and other management positions of these Chinese loan app companies.

According to the police the arrested accused identified as Deepak, resident of Mohan Garden, Sakshi Sethia, resident of Mansarovar Garden, Ankit, resident of Kapashera, New Delhi and Divyansh, native of village Sega Jagatpur, district Bulandshahar in UP.

According to the police a case, the complainant told police that he had applied for a loan through an online app in September last year. He had received the loan and it was repaid in October 2021 but had started receiving calls from four apps like easy loan, ag loan, rupee ready, tayto cash and asking for loan repayment.

A senior investigating officer said these accused were running call centres in Gurugram and Noida and the modus operandi used by the accused was to provide small loans to needy persons.

In Thane, Maharashtra, an offence has been registered against four persons for allegedly cheating investors of Rs 9.19 crore in Maharashtra’s Thane city, police said on Saturday. The accused had allegedly floated an investment company and wooed investors by promising them good returns in the share market, an official from Kalwa police station said.

The accused had allegedly cheated 54 investors to the tune of Rs 9.19 crore over a period of six years, from 2017, he said.

Meanwhile, in Gurugram, Haryana, a senior woman officer of the Economic and Innovation Department was allegedly duped of around Rs 2 lakhs on the pretext of home delivery of liquor, police said on Saturday. Following the complaint of a woman officer, an FIR has been registered at the cyber crime police station, east on Friday.

According to the complaint, it was on 4 September when she was searching for home delivery for liquor on Google. “I got a number on Google and contacted the person. During the conversation, he asked me how much and which liquor was needed. He assured me for home delivery and demanded advance payment after sending a link,” she said.

“I made some payment but soon after I got to know that 1.93 lakhs was transferred from my account fraudulently. After this the man did not contact me. He neither delivered liquor nor returned the money and then finally I moved to police,” the woman said in her complaint.

In Chandigarh, Haryana Police on Saturday said it has arrested a man who was allegedly involved in ATM fraud cases in Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. Accused Rohit alias Amit, a resident of Rohtak in Haryana, used to fraudulently obtain automated teller machine (ATM) cards from unknown people and clone them, the police said.

Later, on the pretext of helping the card holders, he used to get their passwords and siphon money, a police spokesperson said. A police team from Bhiwani arrested him from Hansi and recovered Rs 70,000 cash and a car, a police spokesman said.