Lucknow, Dec 11 (IANS): A team of UP Special Task Force (STF) STF has arrested a wanted criminal who was a member of a gang that had duped people of crores of rupees after promising to facilitate a bonus against their insurance policy, or a claim from a closed policy.

The accused, identified as Vimal Kumar Gupta of Ghaziabad, was arrested from Moti Nagar in Delhi.

Additional SP STF, Vishal Vikram Singh said the accused and his other aides posed themselves as officials of the IRDA, RBI, LIC and GBIC to trap the victims.

"On April 29, a team had nabbed nine miscreants of the gang who were involved in the crime. Vimal's name had surfaced in the crime but he escaped then. The team was tracking the absconding miscreants and were tipped off that Vimal was running a call centre from an office in Delhi to trap victims. A team was dispatched to Delhi and the miscreant was arrested," Singh said.

Singh said Vimal started his career as a tele caller at a private company in 2009 and rose to the position of vice president and president in different companies by 2021. He then met one Devendra Singh, who was arrested by the STF in April 2022, and worked with him at a commission of 40 per cent.

In his confession, Vimal said he harvested data of customers while working in the companies in the early days of his career and used this data bank to fleece the customers later. The gang used to make calls to the customers and trap them promising to facilitate a bonus, or get claims of closed policies and other such deals and charge money for the same. The gang was busted when they duped a woman, Asha Mishra of Krishna Nagar, who lodged a complaint.