New Delhi [India]: The Delhi Police Special Cell of Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) has busted a gang of fraudsters involved in the sale of fake Ayurvedic medicines by reputed companies and arrested 10 persons in connection with the matter, officials said on Tuesday.
According to the police, the matter came to light when the manager admin of a private marketing firm lodged a complaint with IFSO wherein it was alleged that “fake, spurious, misbranded and adulterated medicines were being delivered to their customers by some unknown persons”.
“These unknown persons represented themselves as the employees of UMPL and called the clients or patients from different mobile numbers and lured them by offering to sell medicines at discounted rates, thereby causing loss to the clients and benefiting themselves,” the police said.
It was also alleged that the fraudsters procured the data of the company and around 6,372 clients were defrauded by them to the tune of Rs 1.94 crore since 2017.
The police said that the accused in the matter who was identified as Rahul Singh is the mastermind of the network.
He ran a fake call centre in the Indira Nagar area of Lucknow along with other partners identified as Ugarsen, Samar Singh and Jitender Singh, the police said.
“He had procured the data of the complainant company from one Rajesh Singh, an employee of a telecom company through a chain of persons. He further sold the data to Vikas Pal, a resident of Delhi and others on a 60 per cent commission,” the police said.
An FIR was lodged on March 23, under sections 419/420/120B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and 66C/66D of the Information Technology (IT) Act was registered at Police Station Special Cell, Delhi in this regard and an investigation was taken up.
“During the course of the investigation, relevant account details from various courier companies and call details records of alleged numbers were collected and analyzed. It came to notice that accounts were opened from Delhi and Lucknow. Further, the locations of the alleged numbers were also found in both cities,” the police said.
It was also revealed that the fraudsters used to operate and call the clients through three fake call centres and would then lure the customers of the complainant company on the pretext of discounted medicines and sell them inferior quality Ayurvedic medicines.
The team conducted a comprehensive analysis and carried out an exhaustive field investigation in which it traced the three Call Centres located in Swaroop Nagar (Delhi), Indira Nagar and Jankipuram (Lucknow), according to the police.
The Special Team Cell conducted simultaneous raids at all three locations and apprehended the accused persons with a large quantity of inferior-quality Ayurvedic medicines.
“42 mobile phones, 7 laptops, inferior quality Ayurvedic medicines and data of Unayur Marketing Private Limited (UMPL) and Kudos Ayurveda were recovered from the possession of the accused,” Deputy Commissioner Police IFSO Prashant Gautam said.
“We have arrested ten people in the case,” the Delhi Police added.
