Fake friendship club busted, 25 held
Police said the gang had cheated people in several states, including Delhi, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
NEW DELHI: The crime branch has busted a gang running fake friendship clubs and masseur training centres and arrested 25 people, including 20 women.
Police said the gang had been operating the racket for the past one year and was making over Rs 1.5 lakh every day from callers by promising them models, housewives, students and actresses as friends.
Crime branch officials said the gang leader was paying around Rs 75,000 on rent every month for three offices in Janakpuri and had cheated people in several states, including Delhi, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. The police suspect that the number of persons cheated by this gang may be in thousands, with most of them being from Gujarat.
Deputy commissioner of police, crime branch,Ashok Chand said these rackets were being run in an organised manner by one Rajesh Singh, who is yet to be arrested.
Singh never disclosed his address to any of his associates. He perhaps runs more such offices.
A team of sub-inspector Sharat Kohli and head constable Amit Tomar gathered information about these fake friendship clubs and the massage parlour training centres after scanning advertisements in national dailies.
The police stumbled upon the three offices in the Janakpuri district centre on Friday and arrested five youths — Dinesh, Hitendra Rawat, Sachin Pal, Sunil and Rajesh alias Sonu and 19 women aged between 19 to 24 years and a 40-year-old woman who was supervising these girls. Dinesh, Hitendra and Sachin are graduates while Rajesh and Sunil are school dropouts.
Additional DCP, crime branch, Joy Tirkey said the fake friendship clubs advertised themselves as Honeymoon Nights Friendship Club while for the masseur training centres, they used various names like Kakul Massage Parlour, Sheila Massage Parlour, Sheetal Massage Parlour, Kaya Massage Parlour and Pratigya Massage Parlour in daily newspapers in four states.
"They used to give mobile numbers in ads. When a person called, they offered them female friends from all sections of the society. These girls would pose as airhostesses, models, housewives and college students to talk to callers and asked them to transfer the money to their account. And if the caller desired to meet, they would ask him to transfer money in their account for air ticket," said Tirkey.
The police said that in the case of friendship clubs, the caller would be asked to get himself registered by depositing Rs 1,000 in a bank account. Once the caller had registered himself, he would be offered three categories of women contacts for being friends — models for Rs 7,000, college girls for Rs 5,000 and housewives for Rs 3,000. Once the amount was transferred by the caller, Singh would withdraw it using ATM cards and the women would stop taking calls.
For masseur training centres, they only entertained male callers. "They would be told that they would not only teach them how to become a masseur but also provide a list of clients. The callers would be asked to pay Rs 1,000 as registration fee, Rs 3,750 for the massage kit and Rs 7,000 for the lady trainer," said Chand.
The police have recovered 60 mobile phones and two laptops.
(source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
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