Turkish police capture swindlers in 10 million lira fraud

Turkish police on Monday detained 40 suspects in an operation in Istanbul against a fraud gang which allegedly swindled more than TL 10 million out of 10,000 victims.

The gang was deceiving people into thinking that they had purchased life insurances bycalling their victims and telling them that it was the last day to extend their life insurances. The gang would tell the victims that TL 800 was required for the transaction.

In the instance that they wished to cancel the insurance, the call center would tell its victims that they would have to pay TL 350 for the cancellation process. The crooks also added that if they didn't pay the cancellation fee, TL 600 would be taken via bailiffs.

When the victims told the call-center employees that they had not signed or bought such an insurance deal, the fraudsters would say that they had previous recorded calls of them buying the insurance and agreeing to a free 1-year insurance package.

Those who believed in the scam, gave their credit card details to the call center to either cancel the transaction or to extend their insurance.

In the large-scale multi-million lira scam, the gang is believed to have defrauded about 10,000 people across Turkey.

The operation launched by Cyber Crime Branch Directorate teams found that the gang operated a fake call center in Istanbul's Kadıköy district.

After a 2 month-long investigation, 40 suspects including the gang's founders, Ibrahim A., Ahmet G., Burak A., Kaya A. were taken into custody, and 51 hard discs, several telephones and many flash drives were confiscated.