Dehradun, Apr 8 (PTI) Uttarakhand Police’s Special Task Force on Monday arrested two men for allegedly duping people from across the country of more than Rs 1 crore on the pretext of getting them loans under the PM Mudra Loan scheme, officials said.
The action was taken by the Special Task Force (STF) based on information provided by various web portals of the Home Ministry, STF Senior Superintendent of Police Ayush Aggarwal said.
He said Rahul Kanaujia (30) and Siddhant Chauhan (22) were arrested from the Premnagar area here but the leader of the gang Deepakraj Sharma is still absconding.
The people duped by the gang were mostly residents of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra, the SSP said, adding 1.31 lakh cash, 64 SIM cards, 11 ATM cards, 10 mobile phones, two bank passbooks and chequebooks of seven banks were seized.
According to the STF, there were reports of suspicious mobile numbers allegedly being used in the Premnagar area for fraudulent activities online under the garb of the PM Mudra Loan scheme.
During the investigation, it came to the fore that lakhs of rupees were being deposited in instalments of Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 daily by people from across the country in many suspicious bank accounts, it said.
Prima facie, about Rs 1.5 crore was deposited in three suspicious bank accounts and then withdrawn over the last two months. This amount was mostly deposited by the people of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra, SSP Ayush Aggarwal said.
The STF said that during interrogation, Rahul Kanaujia revealed that he is a class 12 pass and came to Dehraun along with gang leader Deepakraj Sharma, a resident of Sultanpur district in Uttar Pradesh, in search of work.
It was Sharma who told him about the scheme and asked him to call people posing as a government employee and offer them help in getting loans approved under it, the STF said, adding the gang used to charge people five to 10 per cent of the loan amount as commission and processing fee for getting the loan approved.
A case has been registered against the accused under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and Section 66D of the IT Act, SSP Aggarwal said. PTI ALM ALM NSD NSD
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