New Delhi: Five men were arrested from Jamtara in Jharkhand for allegedly duping more than 2,500 people by posing as customer care executives of banks and e-commerce websites, the Delhi Police said on Wednesday.
A sim cards supplier was also arrested from Murshidabad in West Bengal, they said.
The accused posted their mobile phone numbers as the customer care helplines of banks and e-commerce sites on the internet. Once they got the access to a victim’s number registered with a bank, they would siphon off money from his/her account, police said.
Nijamudin Ansari (23), Afroj Alam (23), Mohammad Amir Ansari (22), Sarfaraj Ansari (22) and Afroj Ansari (22) were arrested from Jamtara while Nasim Malitya (31) was nabbed from Murshidabad, they said.
A total of 12,500 pre-activated sim cards were provided to the fraudsters in Jamtara in one year by Malitya, police said, adding that more than 21,000 sim cards were recovered from Malitya.
According to police, a complainant, presently residing in Dubai, had come to Delhi to visit his daughter.
He wanted to get the bank passbook of her daughter updated and searched for the customer care number on the internet. When he called on the number, the person on the other end, posing as the customer care executive, asked him to download ‘anydesk’ application on his phone for further assistance, a senior police officer said.
The fraudster then asked him to log into his net banking account following which, they made two unauthorised transactions of Rs 9.5 lakh and Rs 50,000, police said.
During the investigation, police found that the fraudsters used the call forwarding method and changed the webpage customer phone numbers frequently in order to hide their locations.
On April 11, a raid was conducted at Jamtara in Jharkhand along with a team of Jharkhand Police and the accused were nabbed while they were making calls from an isolated place in Nawadih village, Karmatar, Deputy Commissioner of Police (outer north) Ravi Kumar Singh said.
It was revealed that sim cards were supplied after activation from Murshidabad and in a single phone, more than 300 SIMs were activated in a day, the DCP said.
One fraudster used to keep three to four smartphones for calling at a time and choose a remote place in village Nawadih, Karmatar in Jamtara, police said.
Nijamudin Ansari was previously involved in a cyber case of Jamatara and remained in jail for four months. He is one of the masterminds of this case. He used to pose as a senior bank manager, police added.
Police said so far, close to Rs 20 lakh that was siphoned off by the accused has been tracked and a refund process initiated.
