The crime branch of Delhi police has arrested a group of eight youth in an education loan racket in Delhi. These youth cheated near about 500 students by promising them easy loans. The fraud amount has been found to be nearly Rs 1 crore.

The leader of the gang has been identified as 24-year-old Varun Sardana, a former employee of a multinational bank.

According to additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) Neeraj Thakur, "Sardana, his two school friends Himanshu Sharma, 21, and Sunny Pal, 22, and five girls, aged between 19 and 27 years, were arrested from their office at Parmanand Colony in Mukherjee Nagar on October 28."

Thakur said, "The gang advertised extensively in local dailies in the National Capital Region and offered easy education loans to susceptible customers."

The gang had girl convicts too who aided in convincing the students to deposit their money.

There were 16 bank accounts and 26 mobile phones through which the gang operated, all bearing fake IDs.

These banks include State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Bank of India, Union Bank and Axis Bank.

Fifty-seven unused SIM cards were recovered from the gang, along with 18 ATM cards.

"Sardana left his well-paying job and recruited his school friends, Himanshu and Sunny, to run the racket in Delhi," Thakur said.

"He then hired a few girls and taught them how to sell the story of easy education loans to gullible callers," he added.

On the client's call the girl asked him to first deposit an amount between Rs 2,500 and Rs 3,000 as processing fee in a certain bank account. After this the client was asked to send relevant documents to a mail id.

"Then the victim was asked to deposit the first installment of the loan in a bank account, before the promised loan materialised," added Thakur.