Chandigarh, Mar 3 (PTI) Punjab Police on Monday arrested the prime accused, who ran a fake website of the mining department, said a senior officer.

Gaurav Kumar of Kharar in SAS Nagar had created the exact replica of the original official website of the mining department to generate counterfeit receipts and forms for facilitating the movement of vehicles involved in illegal mining, said Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav.

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The DGP said the fake slips even consisted of a QR scanner code on the lines of the official mining website which helped the vehicles in passing all security checks to curb illegal mining.

The initial investigation revealed that the accused in connivance with a person from Ferozepur generated over 2,000 fake mining receipts causing an estimated loss of around Rs 40-50 lakh to the state exchequer, he added.

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The DGP said the website backup, along with data containing details of fake receipts, images of vehicles, mining material sources and destinations, and the computer systems used in the offence, has been recovered.

Further investigation is underway to uncover the full nexus, he added.

Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), Cybercrime Division, V Neeraja, said the investigation began after a complaint was filed by the chief engineer of the mining department alleging that the official website had been compromised and a fake website was being used to facilitate illegal mining activities.

It was revealed during the investigation that the fake website was registered and hosted on GoDaddy, a US-based domain provider, she said, adding the cybercrime officials in coordination with GoDaddy's legal authorities and various internet service provider, traced the website's creation to accused Gaurav Kumar.

The ADGP said the police teams further obtained information regarding IP addresses and mobile numbers of the accused and conducted raids at different places leading to the arrest of the accused.

Police also identified the other accused person involved in this scam and raids are being conducted to nab him, she added.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)