Five arrested for mobile tower fraud

They were arrested after the police received inputs that some people were running an illegal business involving installation of mobile towers from Mayur Vihar Phase-I. The gang would allegedly post advertisements in leading newspapers across Punjab,Haryana,Uttar Pradesh,Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra — offering to install mobile towers in their land in return for money.

“To convince the people,they would spout names of companies such as Virgin,Idea and Aircel Mobile. In the course of time,they would contact interested parties and tell them to deposit the registration amount in an account number acquired through forgery,” O P Mishra,Deputy Commissioner of Police (East),said.

“After the land owner had deposited the money,between Rs 4,000 and Rs 5,000,they would dispatch a set of fake agreement letters. Stating that the customer would receive Rs 65,000 to Rs 75,000 as rent per month once the deal was done,they would make the victim deposit as much as Rs 40 lakh as advance,” he added.

The gang had created more than 100 accounts through forged IDs in financial institutions such as ICICI,Punjab National Bank,State Bank of India and State Bank of Patiala.

“They also employed telecallers and gave them Rs 5,000 per month as salary. However,none of them would be retained for more than two months due to fear of being exposed,” Mishra said.

As many as 180 mobile phones,1,000 fake stamp papers and hundreds of agreement letters of different mobile companies were recovered from them.