The state CID has arrested a gang of 12 men who were allegedly running a fake call centre in the guise of a finance company at a highrise in Rajarhat.

The gang was fraudulently offering loans from banks and financial institutions at cheap interest rates and allegedly convincing people to buy insurance in return.

CID officers said the investigating agency had received multiple complaints of cheating from many people across the city running into several lakhs. The complainants were duped of lakhs of rupees in the guise of getting purported personal loans.

CID sleuths said four “operatives” who were behind running the racket had hired around 10 youths who would call potential customers at random and offer bank loans at cheap rates.

“Once the customer showed interest in taking a personal loan, the racketeer would say that the loan could be taken at zero per cent interest rate if he or she bought insurance from a particular company. If the customer agreed, the racketeers would start asking for processing fees,” said a CID officer of the cyber crime police station.

Officers said several people who had invested money realised it was a racket when the purported insurance was not processed and neither was a loan sanctioned from any bank or financial institute.

The racketeers were running the fake call centre in an office named Ignite Wealth Management at Mani Casadona, East Tower, 4th and 7th floor in Rajarhat, the police said.

Based on information, the police raided the Rajarhat office and arrested eight people on Friday.

Pursuing their statement, investigators arrested four more people — Ishwar Chand Das, Kaushik Pattanaik, Swapan Sil and Bappa Koley — who were identified as the “main operatives”, the police said.

The accused were produced in court on Saturday.

They have been charged with sections of cheating, forgery, fraud, criminal conspiracy and under sections of the information technology act.