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The Delhi police on Friday busted a pan-India cyber fraud racket and arrested seven people from the national capital and neighbouring Bihar. Police said that they recovered 11 mobile phones, more than 100 SIM cards, forged documents and three laptops along with four cheque books and five ATM cards from their posession.
Police said the accused duped hundreds of people across the country by creating fake identical websites of various companies. The accused sold the fake websites at high rates to cyber fraudsters in their network, who used them to dupe people visiting such sites.
The arrested persons have been found directly linked to over 2,100 cybercrime complaints and 67 first information reports (FIRs) registered at different police stations in Delhi and multiple cities across India, said Rohit Meena, deputy commissioner of police (DCP) (Shahdara).
Police have identified the arrested accused as Mohammad Raja, 26; Vikas, 28; Mohammad Suhail Ansari, 26; Ankit Yadav, 26; Kanhaiya Kumar Mahto, 19; Bihari Paswan, 22, and Ajeet Kumar Paswan, 23.
Four of the seven arrested were web developers who offered web solutions and also created fake identical websites of different firms, the police said.
“Analysis of the seized electronic mobile phones and laptops showed that the gang was active for the past two years. The scrutiny of some of their bank accounts has shown a transaction of more than Rs.4 crore. We have come across more bank accounts as our investigation is progressing. The cheated amount would be much higher,” said DCP Meena.
Raja, Vikas, Ansari and Yadav were arrested from Karala village in northwest Delhi earlier this week. Their interrogation led to the arrest of the other three from Warisaliganj near Nawada in Bihar, the police said.
DCP Meena said that the arrests came following an investigation into a cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy case registered at the cyber police station of Shahdara district on October 7.
The complainant, Vijay Pahwa, was duped of over Rs.1.15 lakh in the name of selling an electric scooter to him. Pahwa told the police that he had searched online to buy the scooter and found a website on which electric scooters were available for sale.
He found a contact number on the site and made an enquiry call. After selecting an electric scooter, he was tricked into paying ₹1,15,560 against the delivery of the two-wheeler. However, once the amount was paid, the responder vanished. Thereafter, Pahwa filed a cheating complaint at the Shahdara police station, and accordingly, a case was registered, Meena said.
“During the probe, the cyber police station team obtained and examined details of the phone number and bank account used by the cyber fraudster. They also examined the documents and IDs that were used to create the fake website. The efforts helped investigators identify the locations of the suspects and arrest them from Delhi and Bihar,” added the DCP.
Karn Pratap Singh has been writing on crime, policing, and issues of safety in Delhi for almost a decade. He covers high-intensity spot news, including terror strikes, serial blasts and security threats in the national capital.