New Delhi

Held for cheating

NEW DELHI: Three persons, including a woman, have been arrested by the Crime Branch of the Delhi police for allegedly running a friendship club and duping its clients on the pretext of providing contact numbers of “willing” female friends.

The club had over 400 members from Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and the rest of Maharashtra. The total earning of the club so far is more than Rs.16 lakh. Three cell phones, seven SIM cards and registers have been seized.

Sunrise Friendship Club was being run from an office at Anuvrat Tower in the Wazirpur Industrial Area since March. It had recently shifted from Azadpur to its present address.

The alleged mastermind, Ajay alias Ashish, would run the club from a rented accommodation and put out advertisements in local newspapers in Delhi, Bangalore and Maharashtra promising contact numbers of “willing” female friends. When a client called up at the numbers given in the advertisement, he was provided a bank account number and asked to deposit the registration fee running into several thousands. Once the money was deposited, women tele-callers would talk to the client for a few days and than start rejecting his calls.

The client was charged an additional Rs.25,000 on the promise of arranging a meeting with the “tele-friend”, but the promise was never kept.

The accused -- Neeraj Kumar, Prashant Kumar and a woman accomplice -- were arrested in Wazirpur on Wednesday following a tip-off. Ajay and his other accomplices are absconding.

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