Haryana Police on Wednesday said following the recent raids on cyber thugs in Nuh district, pan-India cyber frauds to the tune of ₹100 crore and nearly 28,000 cases linked to these criminals have been traced across the country.
The police had raided 14 villages of Nuh on the intervening night of April 27-28 involving 102 teams of 5,000 policemen. During this raid, around 125 suspected hackers were detained and finally, 66 accused were identified and arrested. During the raids, 166 fake Aadhar cards, 5 PAN cards, 128 ATM cards, 66 mobile phones, 99 SIMs, five POS machines, three laptops etc were recovered, said Superintendent of Police (SP) Nuh Varun Singla.
“People across the country were targeted by these fraudsters who used to cheat people with fake SIM, Aadhaar cards etc and used to deposit money in fake bank accounts to avoid arrest,” the SP added.
The SP added nearly 28,000 cases of cyber fraud have been traced across the country with the arrest of the accused.
He said the police teams are working on the multiple leads provided by the cybercriminals arrested in this operation and further raids are being carried out to nab the criminals spread over multiple states, who have since absconded from their villages.
{{/usCountry}}He said the police teams are working on the multiple leads provided by the cybercriminals arrested in this operation and further raids are being carried out to nab the criminals spread over multiple states, who have since absconded from their villages.
{{/usCountry}}The SP said that director general of police (DGP) PK Agrawal had deployed a team of 40 cyber experts, who were closely associated with the interrogation of these accused. The assistance of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre of the Union ministry of home affairs was also sought.
“During this analysis, it has come out that the cyber thugs have so far defrauded around 28,000 gullible people to the tune of more than ₹100 crore from the majority of the states and union territories across the country,” SP Singla said in a news conference held in Nuh.
Already 1,346 FIRs have been registered against these cyber fraudsters across the country. The police investigation also revealed information about 219 accounts of private and public sector banks and 140 UPI accounts, which were being used for committing cyber frauds. At least 347 SIM cards activated from Haryana, West Bengal, Assam, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, North East, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka circles of telecom companies have also been unearthed, which were being used by these thugs for cybercrime.
The police officer said that during the investigation, the source of fake SIMs and bank accounts have been found to be mainly linked to the district Bharatpur in Rajasthan.
The SP said that in 16 cases registered in Nuh district, 250 wanted cyber criminals working as co-accused to the cybercriminals apprehended have also been identified, out of which 20 are from Rajasthan, 19 from Uttar Pradesh and 211 from Haryana. The cybercriminals, who are in the age bracket of 18-35 years, have disclosed that they normally used to work in a group of 3-4 persons. They have also revealed that fake bank accounts, fake SIM Cards, mobile phones, cash withdrawal/disbursal and technical services such as posting an advertisement on social media websites were provided by only a handful of individuals in a village after charging their commission fees ranging from 5% to 50% of the fraud amount. The cybercriminals mainly used Common Service Centres for cash withdrawal, while some others used ATMs installed in different villages for the same.
Giving details of the modus operandi, Singla said that these fraudsters used to commit the fraud by luring the victims with attractive offers of sale on products like bikes, cars, mobile phones etc, by posting misleading advertisements on Facebook Bazaar/OLX.
“These fraudsters used to post an advertisement on social media platforms offering work from home mainly related to packaging of Natraj pencils, promising an earning of ₹30,000 per month and cheat gullible people on the pretext of a registration fee, packing materials, courier fee etc,” he said.
The cybercriminals were also duping victims through sextortion crime by creating attractive profiles on social media platforms and luring the victims to come on a video chat where they used to carry out screen recordings of the victims in compromising positions and then extort huge sums of money from them.
Similarly, cyber fraudsters used to check random number series in UPI apps to get the names of victims registered against those numbers on those apps. The fraudster then impersonated some friend/relative of those unsuspecting victims and requested them to receive payment on their behalf on one or the other pretext. They then used to commit fraud by sending fake payment messages and getting money transferred to their accounts before the victim found something amiss. Similarly, on the pretext of buying old coins, gullible people were duped of huge sums of money, said the police officer.