SAMBALPUR: Sambalpur police on Tuesday arrested three youths of Jharkhand and Bihar in connection with a cyber fraud of Rs 2 lakh which took place on February 5. The accused are Rahmat Ansari (22) of Deoghar and Vishal Pandey (21) of East Singbhum in Jharkhand besides Sekhar Gautam (21) Jamui district in Bihar. Cash of Rs 1.13 lakh, nine mobile phones, ATM cards of different banks and a laptop were seized from their possession.
Police said on February 5, one Saroj Dash had lodged a complaint alleging that Rs 2 lakh was fraudulently debited from his account. Dash stated that on the same day, he had applied for a personal loan online through an app and got an offer for sanction of an amount of Rs 3.9 lakh. Subsequently, he completed the formalities but when he went to a local private bank to attach the mandate format for monthly installment, it could not be linked. Dash also searched for the app’s helpline number but nobody responded.
However after sometime, a person called him claiming to be the customer support executive and offered to assist him. The caller advised him to download ‘Anydesk’ app to complete the formalities which gave him access to his phone. In the evening, a sum of Rs 3,81,168.88 was credited to his account but half an hour later, the person who assisted him in completing the formalities debited Rs 2 lakh from the credited amount from his account.
Basing on the complaint, police launched an investigation and nabbed the three accused involved in the fraud. During interrogation, the trio confessed to have duped Dash and said they created lucrative ads and posted those in different sites of Google to lure gullible persons. They called people to offer assistance and asked them to download some remote access app on their phones through which they managed to make fraudulent transactions.
Police said the accused also added their numbers as bait in customer care list of different online sites. They procured these fake SIM cards from the black market in Kolkata. The three accused were forwarded to court on the day.