New Delhi, Jan 21 (IANS) Five people running an illegal call centre were arrested here for cheating several Britons, said police Monday.

Pawan Singh, 21, Sumit Kumar, 20, Ashu, 23, Amit Singh, 27, and Anshuman Srivastava, 26, were arrested from north Delhi's Pitampura Jan 18 from a call centre named Wisdom Calling.

They were arrested following a complaint from the British High Commission that staff of illegal call centres were making calls to Britons by impersonating as employees of banks and financial institutions in that country.

"The accused used to assure British citizens help in providing unsecured loans as well as claim of payment protection insurance," said S.B.S, Tyagi, deputy commissioner of police (crime).

Adding that there were about 10,000 call centres operating in the city, Tyagi said that as soon as the customer agreed to the offer made by the accused, he was directed to transfer processing fee for sanctioning the loan.

"The customers are directed to transfer the money through UKASH vouchers. Once the money is deposited, it is encashed by the accused. Thereafter, the accused did not pick up phone calls of the customers," said Tyagi.

Srivastava gave his employees data related to British citizens.

"In the given data, details related to the names, addresses, contact numbers, loan amounts, loan years, banks and financial institutions were provided on citizens of Britain who had taken loan and paid off the same successfully," said Tyagi.

All of the accused earlier have worked in call centres in Delhi and neighbouring towns.