BENGALURU: Investigators of Crime Investigations Department (CID) have busted an online racket and arrested four Jharkhand residents for duping customers. The accused were running an online scam -- bottom phishing -- wherein they lured bank customers for investment and withdrew their money using their account details.
During the investigations, CID found that the gang opened 28 bank accounts with fake documents and forged multiple PAN cards. They used 460 SIM cards and 15 mobile phones to lift the money through online transaction. Police also seized laptops which contained database of 16000 bank accounts
The gang created more than 600 domain names to open online portals to cheat people in the pretext of selling gadgets and home appliances at throw away prices.
Police also said that the scammers lured gullible people by providing an investment offer with cash benefits. The victims were asked to login into websites s such as www.paymaza.com, www.manafaperday.com and others and were directed to update their banking credentials. But neither goods nor interest amounts as promised by the websites would be received by the customers.
According to a preliminary investigation, the gang is suspected to have conned several people to the tune of Rs 15 lakh or more.
The arrested have been identified as Kapil Dev Suman alias Ajay Singh, Suraj, Susheel Kumar and Biplav Kumar. They are native of Bokaro in Jharkhand and had come to the city to study.
The accused had furnished fake documents to open bank accounts in various banks. They were diploma drop outs and also worked in a call centre for a while in the city. However, they accused allegedly led a lavish life and used to stay in posh hotels of the city.
The gang was nabbed based on a complaint on July 13 by one Suresh Sakri, a resident of JP Nagar. He had filed a case with Cyber Crime police stating that two unanimous transactions were made through SBI buddy and Rs 5000 and 2000 was debited from his account without his knowledge.
As soon as he received the SMS alert about the transfers he had approached bank and police. Following the complaint, three special teams were formed to crack the case and gathered information that the amount was credited to the account of Suman who had given fake documents in the name of Ajay Singh. He was picked up by the police and revealed the names of his friends who were also involved in the fraud.