10 held for selling fake ayurvedic medicines in Delhi, Lucknow

New Delhi, May 16 (IANS) With the arrest of 10 persons, Delhi Police has busted a gang of cheats involved in sale of inferior quality ayurvedic medicines of reputed companies through three fake call centres running in Delhi and Lucknow, an official said on Tuesday.

The official said that the gang-- Neem Hakeem Khatre Jaan -- had cheated 6,372 people across the country to the tune of Rs 1.94 crore.

The accused were identified as Vikas Pal, Sonu Pal, Rahul Singh, Samar, Ugarsen Singh, Jitender Kumar Singh, Rohit Singh, Satish Singh, Rajesh Singh and Ashutosh Kumar.

The official said that they have also recovered 42 mobile phones, nine laptops and inferior quality medicines and data of 'Hakim Suleman group'.

According to police, Sachin Dahiya, Manager Admin, Unayur Marketing Pvt Ltd (UMPL) lodged a complaint with Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of Delhi Police wherein it was alleged that fake, spurious, misbranded and adulterated medicines are being delivered to their customers by some unknown persons who represent themselves as their company's employees.

"Dahiya alleged that the persons call the clients from different mobile numbers and lure them by offering to sell medicines at discounted rates, thereby causing wrongful loss to the clients and wrongful gain to themselves," said Prashant Gautam, Deputy Commissioner of Police (IFSO).

"It was also alleged that the fraudsters also procured the data of UMPL and around 6,372 clients/patients have been defrauded by them to the tune of Rs 1.94 crore since 2017," said the DCP.

During investigation, relevant account details from various courier companies and call detail records of alleged numbers were collected and analyzed and it came to notice that accounts were opened from Delhi and Lucknow.

"Further, the locations of the alleged numbers were also found in both the cities. However, the addresses of the alleged persons were not traceable. Hence, the team conducted comprehensive analysis and carried out exhaustive field investigation and finally succeeded in tracing three call centres located in Swaroop Nagar (Delhi), Indira Nagar and Jankipuram (Lucknow)," said the DCP.

Consequently, the police teams conducted simultaneous raids at all the three locations and apprehended the accused persons.

The DCP said that Rahul is the mastermind of this network.

"He was running a fake call centre at Indira Nagar, Lucknow along with other partners --Ugarsen, Samar Singh and Jitender Singh. He had procured the data of the complaint's company from one Rajesh, an employee of Airtel through a chain of persons. He further sold the data to Vikas Pal and others on 60 per cent commission," said the official.

"The telecallers at these call centres would lure the customers of complainant company on the pretext of discounted medicines and would sell them inferior quality Ayurvedic medicines," the DCP added.