India News | UP Cyber Cell Nabs Two Thugs of Jamtara Gang over KYC Fraud
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. Two persons, suspected to be part of the bigger Jamtara-based gang of cheats, were arrested on Monday on charges of fraud, the Cyber Cell of the Uttar Pradesh police said.
Noida, Apr 4 (PTI) Two persons, suspected to be part of the bigger Jamtara-based gang of cheats, were arrested on Monday on charges of fraud, the Cyber Cell of the Uttar Pradesh police said.
The suspects were held from Delhi by the Noida unit of the Cyber Cell, a senior official said, adding they have been involved in frauds running into crores of rupees.
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The accused have been identified as Pradeep Mandal (25), a native of Girdih district in Jharkhand, and Monu Bansal (34), who hails from Delhi, Superintendent of Police (UP Cyber Cell) Triveni Singh said.
"The duo was part of the bigger Jamtara-based gang which duped money from a lot of people through online mode. Mandal is the nephew of a key cyber criminal Pramod Mandal of the Jamtara gang who has been arrested recently by the UP police," Singh told reporters.
Jamtara in Jharkhand is infamously known as a hot bed of cyber criminals, most of whom are youngsters with low education but knack for smartphone-based technology, the officer said.
On the modus operandi of the duo, Singh said, "They would call gullible people on pretext of being representatives of Airtel and tell the target that their SIM card would be expiring soon but in order to keep it active, they need to get their KYC (Know Your Customer) verification done."
"Once a user was convinced, they would send them some applications (apps) to download which would be 'remote access tools' that allowed the frauds to take access of the mobile phones of the victims. Eventually they would take out money from the victim's mobile-linked bank account," he said.
He said on different occasions the accused also targeted people pretending to be from a bank, or for Aadhaar update, etc.
The police said they have got two bank accounts frozen which belonged to Mandal and Bansal. The accounts had Rs 80 lakh and Rs 15 lakh in them, respectively.
Officials said while total amount of fraud done by the duo was yet to be ascertained, they estimated their fraud to be well over Rs 20 crore.
There are more people involved in the bigger group and efforts are underway to trace and arrest them, they said.
Singh also announced a reward of Rs 25,000 to the Noida Cyber Cell team led by Inspector Reeta Yadav for cracking the case, according to officials.
An FIR has been lodged in the case under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 467, 471 (both related to forgery), 120B (criminal conspiracy), among others, the police said.
Charges under the provisions of the Information Technology Act have also been invoked in the case, the police 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)