Seven arrested in Bangalore for mobile tower scam

Seven persons from New Delhi have been arrested in Bangalore on charges of cheating scores of people by claiming that they required their land for installing mobile phone towers of a leading telecommunication company.

The New Delhi-based gang had floated a bogus company, which had an office in Bangalore. A joint team of police from New Delhi and Bangalore raided the office and arrested seven of them.

The accused had issued advertisements in leading publications stating that they needed space for installing the mobile phone towers of a leading telecommunication company on rooftops, plots agricultural land. The advertisers offered to pay a monthly remuneration of Rs 20,000.

Scores of people from different parts of the State, particularly Bangalore, found the offer remunerative and responded to the advertisement by even paying an application fee of Rs 2,000.

The accused sent sanction orders with cheques, amounting to 240,000 as advance rent for one year. But, they asked the applicants to pay two months of the rent as deposit to encash the cheques they had received. Several gullible applicants fell for the bait and promptly paid a rent of two months, amounting to Rs 40,000, as deposit.

But, when they tried to encash the cheques, they were shocked to learn that their cheques had bounced, police said.

The victims of the fraud had launched complaints across several police stations in Karnataka, including Bangalore.

Realizing the gravity of the offence, Karnataka’s Director General of Police K R Srinivasan and Bangalore City Police Commissioner Neelam Achuta Rao instructed the central crime branch to investigate the matter.

The Bangalore police got in touch with the crime branch in New Delhi and exchanged valuable information pertaining to the accused, who had taken several people for a ride. The inter-state crime branch of New Delhi along with Bangalore police identified the office of the bogus company in Bangalore and arrested seven of them.