RANCHI: In a first such achievement, the Cyber Crime Branch of the Crime Investigation Bureau (CID) in Jharkhand has arrested seven people, who were working as agents for Chinese cyber criminals.
According to an official release by the CID dated July 4, the cyber police station received confidential information that a gang of organised cyber criminals was carrying out fraudulent activities in the name of digital arrest and investment from a hotel in Ranchi. Acting on this information, the Cyber Crime Branch conducted a raid at the hotel and arrested seven cyber criminals, the release said.
“12 mobiles, 11 laptops, 14 ATMs, checkbooks as well as more than 60 chats of WhatsApp and Telegram have been recovered from the arrested cyber criminals,” stated the official communique from the CID.
The Cyber Crime Branch of the CID stated that all the arrested individuals were Indian agents working for Chinese cyber criminals. According to the investigation agency, the arrested cyber criminals used to supply mule bank accounts to Chinese syndicates from different parts of the country. Among those arrested is a special agent who was working for Chinese entities such as Moonpay, Dragonpay, Superpay, and Mangopayindia.
"During the search and interrogation, a significant number of digital evidences have also been seized, including WhatsApp and Telegram chats containing large volumes of bank account details linked to the syndicate,” the statement said.
The investigation also revealed that an application was sent from China to the Indian agents via Telegram. Cyber criminals in India would install bank-related data onto SIM cards using this application.
“Agents working for the Chinese syndicate were sent a malicious application via Telegram. Then the application was installed on SIM cards linked to bank accounts. Once installed, the application automatically transmitted OTPs and bank alerts to servers controlled from China, enabling Chinese operatives to gain remote access to Indian bank accounts, which were then used to defraud unsuspecting victims of crores of rupees,” the CID explained.
All the arrested individuals were operating in India on behalf of Chinese companies such as Moonpay, Dragonpay, Superpay, and Mangopayindia until their apprehension, the statement said.
Links to the bank accounts of the arrested Chinese agents have been found in complaints related to investment scams and digital arrest cases registered in various states. These complaints have been logged on the NCPCR portal. So far, investigators have obtained statements for 60 mule bank accounts connected to the case.
A total of 68 complaints have been registered against this gang across the country.
The arrested cyber criminals have been identified as Deepak Kumar, Kumar Saurabh, Prabhat Kumar, Shivam Kumar, Pradeep Kumar, and Anil Kumar — all from Bihar — while Lakhan Chaurasia is from Madhya Pradesh.