NEW DELHI: With the arrest of five people, the Delhi Police on Thursday claimed to have busted a gang whose members allegedly duped more than 1,000 people in last two years by posing as bank executives and seeking their account details.
They said the arrested members have been identified as Pawan Singh (27), Mohd Jahid (22), Kamal Goyal (23) and Bunty Kumar (23) and Radha (25).
Explaining their modus operandi, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central) Sanjay Bhatia said that the kingpin of the gang, Pawan, used to procure data of the credit cards issued by various banks and also got SIM cards and mobile wallets issued by using fake IDs.
Radha and Bunty posed as bank executives and called up potential targets to lure them with cashback offers.
Meanwhile, Kamal and Jahid provided them details of various bank accounts to which the money that they looted was transferred, he said.
The gang operated from an office in Uttam Nagar area and during interrogation, they confessed to have cheated more than 1,000 people in last two years alone, the DCP said.
The officer said a probe was initiated into the matter after they received a complaint on August 18 from Vipin Bhatnagar, a resident of Daryaganj in Central Delhi.
Bhatnagar alleged that he received two-three calls on his mobile phone and the callers told him that they were executives of a reputed bank and one of them also told him his credit card details.
Believing that the callers were genuine, he continued the conversation.
The caller told him that he would get Rs 5,000 as cashback if he provided his IVR and OTP.
After he shared the details, Bhatnagar received messages about transactions from his credit card to MobiKwik for Rs 1,500 and Rs 3,599.
Suspecting that something was wrong, he immediately blocked his credit card and later received two more messages pertaining to failed transactions of Rs 31,000 to MobiKwik and Rs 61,000 to PayTm on his mobile phone.
Based on his complaint, a case under section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code was registered at Daryaganj police station, the DCP said.
"Our team arrested five members of the gang on the basis of the clues we gathered through technical analysis of Call Detail Records and MobiKwik bank records.
Our team conducted several raids to trace them," he said.
After the cheated amount was transferred to the bank accounts concerned, the money was distributed among the gang members on a percentage basis, the officer said.
The police claimed to have recovered ten mobile phones, an SUV car purchased from the cheated amount and bank transaction data.