Gang of 'recovery agents' busted, seven men arrested

Delhi Police's Special Cell Tuesday said it has arrested seven men people and busted a syndicate working for a multinational bank, with gang members posing as policemen and lawyers to threaten customers to pay up dues.

Police recovered a laptop, computer peripherals, eight mobile phones and incriminating documents from their possession.

The Special Cell started investigations after a man complained that someone had fraudulently obtained a mobile connection by forging his identity papers and the number was being used to threaten people.

During the course of investigation, seven people - identified as Sunil Howard, Prashant Kumar Bajpai, Atul Kumar, Wasim Khan, Shahid, Ajay Kumar and Johney Issac - were arrested.

“On interrogation, they disclosed that Sunil Howard is the kingpin of their gang and he is in this recovery business since 2004. Initially, he worked in Lucknow and Kanpur for about six months and then shifted to Delhi and started working as recovery agent for a multinational bank,” a senior police officer said.

“The gang had an office in Laxmi Nagar area of east Delhi where six-seven people were employed. Wasim Khan and Atul Kumar are experts in this trade and they exactly knew how to change their voices on the mobile phones and talk like policemen and lawyers. They managed to obtain mobile connections on the basis of forged identity documents,” the police officer added.

After getting names and data from the bank, the gang threatened people living in Lucknow and Kanpur to pay up their dues or face legal action and detention, the police officer said.

Through this, they managed to recover large sums of money in cases of disputed or write-off claims for which they were given huge commissions, police said.

Last updated on Jul 21^st, 2009 at 20:48 pm IST--IANS