Fake friendship club busted,9 held

Umesh allegedly advertised in leading newspapers in Delhi,Gujarat,Rajasthan and Maharashtra and paid Rs 5,000 per month to his women employees along with incentives based on extra money they could fetch from customers. The women acted as tele-callers as well as fake “women friends”.

The club offered three categories of membership,ranging between Rs 3,000 and Rs 7,000 and charges varied for the period of “friendship” desired.

“The lower category offered college girls and housewives as friends; the middle category included teachers,doctors and other professionals; and the upper category promised models and airhostess as friends,” Satyendra Garg,Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch),said.

“Callers would be promised contact numbers of women willing to be friends and then a bank account number was given to them,where they had to deposit money,” Garg said. The bank accounts were opened using fake documents.

“They had customers from all over India. They opened an account in ICICI Bank using fake documents. They operated about four accounts and one account revealed that they had amassed around Rs 18 lakh,” he said. “After the money was received,one of the women entertained the customer on the telephone for sometime. All efforts were made to squeeze out more money from the callers,” Garg said.

The police claimed to have busted another such friendship club,operating from Northwest Delhi’s Mukherjee Nagar,on March 27 earlier this year,with the arrest of nine people,who had allegedly duped people of Rs 15 lakh.