Noida police bust B2B scam, 13 held for duping Jammu-based businessman

Thirteen people were arrested in Noida Sector 63 on Thursday for duping businessmen across India on the pretext of publicising and selling their products in different states under a business to business (B2B) model, police said.

The complaint in this case was given by Sudhir Anand, a cosmetic businessman in Jammu, who was duped of ₹4.86 lakh by the accused, police said.

“On Wednesday, Sudhir Anand approached the Noida Sector 63 police all the way from Jammu and filed a complaint saying that he was duped of ₹4.86 lakh,” said Avdhesh Pratap, station house officer, Sector 63 police station.

Police investigated and found that a call centre in G Block of Noida Sector 63 was targeting businessmen through advertisements on social media. “The gang used to lure businessmen, promising to provide publicity for their business through social media platforms. They also promised to provide eight to 10 distributors in different states who would sell their products,” said Shakti Mohan Avasthy, deputy commissioner of police, Central Noida.

”On the pretext of increasing business on a large scale in a B2B model, they duped their victims by offering packages for their services. After receiving the money, they used to terminate all contact with the businessmen. They usually approached businessmen from other states who avoided taking legal action against them,” he added.

The accused included three women who hold BTech and MBA degrees, police said. The call centre’s director for the past two years was Mayank Tiwari, who is on the run, said police. “Investigation revealed that a woman Kritika was posted as the HR manager at the call centre, and she used to provide a script to new recruits to run the centre. Whenever any businessman approached them in person, Mayank was assigned to deal with them,” said DCP Avasthy, adding that all the bank accounts associated with the call centre have been seized and efforts are underway to determine how many people were duped.

The accused also ran a website and social media platform with more than 20,000 followers.

Police said the accused have been identified as Kritika Verma, Anjali Pandey, Vikas Verma, Pradeep Singh (all MBAs), Keshav Vashist, Manish Gautam, Ritesh Kumar, (all BTech qualified), and Nidhi, Avinish Giri, Ashish Kumar, Ritesh Kumar, Amit, and Ravi Sharma (all MCA, BCom, and MA qualified).

Police said that 10 laptops, two computers, 10 mobile phones, 50 certificates, six scripts, and other electronic gadgets were recovered from the accused’s possession. A case under Section 318(4) (cheating) and Section 316(2) (criminal breach of trust) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita was registered at Sector 63 police station.