Con gang that cheated people by luring them with govt schemes busted, 10 arrested

Ten people were arrested by the Andheri police in Mumbai for cheating people through digital advertisements on social media. They used fraudulent bank accounts and SIM cards acquired using unsuspecting job aspirants' documents. The main accused, an engineering graduate, was running a call centre in Ulwe, Navi Mumbai. The police have seized phones, debit cards, cash, and gold ornaments. The accused were remanded in police custody.

MUMBAI: The cybercrime detection team of the Andheri police arrested ten people on Thursday night for allegedly cheating people by luring them through digital advertisements on social media of government schemes for low-interest loans. Interestingly, the bank accounts run by the gang and the SIM cards used for the con were also acquired fraudulently using documents of unsuspecting job aspirants.

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The main accused, Sunil Reku Chavhan, 27, an engineering graduate from Karnataka, has been in the city for two years. The instagram account of main accused Sunil Chavan is https://www.instagram.com/sunilrchwan?igsh=MXhoOWFmdTJsamw5dg==, shared by the police. 

The gang was using an office in Ulwe in Navi Mumbai for which they used the front of running a digital marketing agency. While the actual work coming their way was outsourced, the gang would float digital advertisements relating to the schemes through which the victims used to get in touch with them.

The police found that the accounts being used by the gang had at least forty-five reported cases against them. “We were investigating a case of a 69-year-old Andheri resident, who had been conned through one such advertisement that declared it could help her procure Pradhan Mantri mudra loan at just 2% interest. She lost ₹40,000 in the name of paying the fraud processing fee,” Datta Nalawade, deputy commissioner of police, zone 10, said.

During the investigation, he added, the cybercrime team learnt that someone was bringing in many homeless people to open bank accounts in Panvel branch of a nationalised bank where the conmen also operated. Keeping an eye on this person led the police to the fake call centre.

Chavhan would wear gold jewellery and posh-looking clothes and distribute food to the homeless and needy people, informed the assistant commissioner of police for Andheri division Dr Shashikant Bhosale. “He would create a rapport with these people and offer help to them get jobs. Under this pretext, he would get them to open a bank account and buy a new SIM card using their documents,” he said. The ‘job applicants’ were asked to wait for their applications to be processed while Chavhan and his gang would use their bank accounts and SIM cards in their operations, he added.

On Thursday night, the police raided the call centre and arrested ten people. “Other than the main accused, the other nine accused are school dropouts. They are all from around his native village,” said senior inspector Santaji Ghorpade.

The police have also seized 38 phones, 61 debit cards, several chequebooks and passbooks, 48 additional SIM cards, a laptop, an SUV, ₹10 lakh in cash and gold ornaments worth ₹21.67 lakh.

Assistant inspector Ranjit Gundre, who led the investigating team, informed that they found at least 45 cases registered in police stations all over the country wherein the account numbers associated with the gang were mentioned. “We also learnt that this is not the first such operation that the main accused is associated with. He was running a similar call centre in Goa before moving to Mumbai,” he said. All the accused were produced before a court and remanded in police custody till January 31.