MUMBAI: City police who recently nabbed a fake insurance executive for allegedly cheating a nationalised bank employee of Rs 90,000 with policy refund promises, have stumbled upon a fake call centre racket and arrested three more persons in the case. The acused had employed seven to eight women to run the call centre.
Police had arrested the main accused, Suraj Waghmare (28), earlier this week and on Friday they held Sagar Pavle (36), Tejas Panwalkar (26) and Namdev Jungle (33). All four were produced before a court and remanded to police custody till October 23.
The fresh development comes after investigators recovered a two-wheeler parking pass on Waghmare’s person after his arrest. It belonged to a parking slot of a mall in Kapurbawdi, Thane. The pass also mentioned a shop number on it. Cops reached the address and found the call centre.
On October 10, a 58-year-old bank employee approached DB Marg police and said she had received a call from an insurance executive who asked her if she wanted to surrender three of her policies and promised her a refund of Rs 2.9 lakh in all. She transferred Rs 90,000 as “processing fees” into the account till she realised she had been defrauded.
It was Waghmare who had made the call. During interrogation, police found his WhatsApp chats with over a hundred people and suspected he may have similarly contacted them by offering policy refund.
A police team led by senior inspector Pradip Khude, PI Raja Bidkar, API Rajaram Pol and PSI Pradip Patil are probing the case.
“The accused had rented a gala to run the fake call centre. They had also hired seven to eight girls. The girls, who were paid salaries up to Rs 10,000 a month, thought they were working for a genuine call centre. They will be our witnesses,” said a cop.
Initially the women would call up policy holders and later the accused would try to convince them, said police. Cops have found 10 bank accounts used to transfer funds. The account holders would be paid 35% commission from the proceeds.
