Jharkhand cyber cheats: gang swindled 37 retd UP police, govt officials in past few months

A senior police official of the UP police Cyber Crime Cell said that all victims fell prey to the same trick of unknown callers posing as treasury officers, who offered them government schemes and retirement benefits

In the first week of July, retired UP police sub-inspector Chote Lal Khan was fooled out of ₹ 11 lakh from his bank account, after he received a call from an unknown caller posing as a treasury officer, offering him different government schemes and retirement benefits. The callers managed to convince Khan to share his ATM password and bank account information. And within minutes, the money from his bank account vanished to different accounts.

Gang members were assigned specific tasks and were paid on the basis of the importance of their task (HT File Photo)

Retired sub-inspector, Udai Veer Singh, of Hardoi district, was duped of ₹10 lakh from his bank account. In his case, the callers again posed as treasury officers and managed to procure his ATM and bank account details.

Similarly, serving sub-inspector Ram Lakhan Chowdhary and a retired woman constable were defrauded of ₹10 lakh and ₹ 9 lakh, respectively.

A retired secretariat official in Lucknow was conned out of ₹53 lakh in the same manner.

A senior police official of the UP police Cyber Crime Cell said a notorious cyber fraudster, Vijay Mandal alias Pramod Mandal, who along with his accomplice, Mantu Mandal, was arrested on Sunday, was the mastermind behind all these frauds. He was also behind the fraud with at least 37 retired government officials in the past few months.

He said that all victims fell prey to the same trick of unknown callers posing as treasury officers, who offered them government schemes and retirement benefits, after which they shared their ATM and bank account details.

The official said that Pramod Mandal and Mantu Mandal, both residents of Jharkhand, had formed a gang along with some relatives and friends after training them about cyber fraud tricks. He said five more members of the gang have been identified and efforts are on to nab them too.

He said Pramod Mandal had assigned specific tasks to his gang members like opening false bank accounts for money transactions and obtaining fake SIM cards for making calls to victims. Some members were trained in making calls to victims while some were given know-how in withdrawing money from bank accounts. They were given a certain amount of money based on the importance of their task.