BENGALURU: Bengaluru’s Cyber Crime police recently hit the jackpot - after days of laying in wait to nab a particular group of scamsters, they may just have solved over 200 cases with the arrest of five criminals from Rajastan.The Cyber Crime police have arrested the alleged masterminds of a series of frauds where they cheated people who posted classified ads on online marketplaces by siphoning off money through a fraudulent QR code.
Police have arrested Karan Singh (35), Akram Khan (18), Haris Khan (21), Jameel (42) and Mehazar (20), all residents of Bharatpur district in Rajasthan. The same gang allegedly cheated a retired PSU official by using the name of City Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao in December. Police said that a special team was formed to trace the accused, as there was spike in the number of cases where fraudsters sent QR codes and siphoned-off money. When the accused cheated the PSU retiree, a police team started gathering details of the accused. The team found that all the money they had fraudulently siphoned off went to bank accounts in Rajasthan.
“A team of policemen went to Rajasthan where they camped for more than 20 days. After gathering the accused’s details, the local police was contacted and the gang was arrested,” an official said.On interrogation, the gang revealed that they were involved in 200 such cases in Bengaluru alone. “They have cheated more than 400 people across the country including 200 in Bengaluru. They were leading a lavish life with the ill-gotten money. They managed to remain elusive as they used one phone number and one bank account at a time to cheat people. After cheating one person, they closed the bank account and changed the phone number. They would give a commission to the person who helped them in opening a new bank account every time,” the official added.
Among the accused, Jameel is a habitual bike-lifter and has served a jail term for eight cases. The bank accounts were opened in the name of Karan Singh, while Haris Khan had worked with firms that deal with online wallet payments and had gained expertise in forging QR codes. While these three picked a victim, the other two posed as prospective buyers. It was found that they also spoke like women in some cases. They admitted that they downloaded Bhaskar Rao’s photo off of Google and cheated the retiree,” the police said. The police have appealed to the public to be careful while selling their articles online and not to entertain buyers, who ask them to scan any QR code.