Two Delhi cops siphon off over ₹75 lakh from solved cybercrime cases, held

Delhi Police said on Tuesday that the duo was caught with ₹12 lakh, 1.2 kilograms of gold, 11 smartphones and a laptop

New Delhi

The main accused, sub-inspector Ankur Malik, was posted with the cyber cell of northeast Delhi. (Representative photo)

Two sub-inspectors of Delhi Police were arrested last Friday from Indore, police said, as they were on the run for four months after allegedly siphoning off over ₹75 lakh from cybercriminals, which they were supposed to revert to bank accounts of cybercrime victims.

Delhi Police said on Tuesday that the duo was caught with ₹12 lakh, 1.2 kilograms of gold, 11 smartphones and a laptop. The value of the stolen gold was estimated at over ₹1 crore, police said.

Police said the accused also allegedly took bribes from cybercrime victims and witnesses, but failed to return their money. They allegedly siphoned off the money from three cases lodged in the 2023-24 period.

The main accused, sub-inspector Ankur Malik, was posted with the cyber cell of northeast Delhi and was handling multiple cheating cases. On March 17, Malik went on a medical leave while his friend, a female sub-inspector posted at Shahdara, applied for leave on March 19.

A senior police officer said, “We don’t know how many people he has cheated, but it was found in March that three of his cases in which the cheated amount was around ₹20 lakh (each case) had not been disposed of. The victims had not received their money while the cases had been solved.”

Deputy commissioner of police (northeast) Ashish Mishra said, “Based on irregularities noticed during the disposal of cases registered at our cyber police station, a case was registered against the investigating officer, who was Malik. We also found he had been missing since March 19, and a probe was initiated. During the primary investigation, the team found cyber fraud involving ₹75 lakh, which were illicitly transferred through four separate fraudulent transactions. The accused misrepresented details in judicial orders and managed to re-route the money.”

The first officer added that one of the cheating cases was a Telegram-based job scam in which people were induced to rate hotels and get money, and later invest in the group. Police said transactions worth ₹2 crore were noted in this case.

HT spoke to one of the witnesses in the case whose bank account was used by the accused to receive the funds. He told HT “Malik had arrested me while the case was also being probed by Rohtak and Mumbai police. I did not know about the scam. Malik told me that I could get bail if I pay him ₹25 lakhs. I had to pay him the bribe. He cheated me in June last year”

An investigator in the case said Malik is married and has a son. The woman sub-inspector, his associate, is also married. The two are batchmates.

He said, “The woman SI helped in re-routing the money. The money was sent to multiple bank accounts. After they had received the money, the duo left Delhi in Malik’s car. We were able to identify the car. It took us months to further trail highway CCTVs but we found that he first went to Jaipur. The couple stayed there for sometime before moving to Indore where they were living under false names”

Police said they started looking into the woman as she too had applied for a medical leave during the same time and did not return. Police retrieved footage in which the woman was seen with Malik.

“On the basis of technical surveillance and our sources, the team traced the accused on Friday. The duo were caught in Indore. We recovered 12 lakh cash, 1.2 kg gold coins and jewellery, 11 smartphones and a laptop” added the DCP.

During their interrogation, police said the accused led the investigators to the men who gave bank account details for the transfer. Police said that on Sunday they arrested Mohd. Ilyaas (40), Arif (35) and Shadab (23) who are all residents of Delhi.