Fake police officers’ gang busted; 5 held

The mastermind of the gang – identified as D Srinivas Rao, 47 – was arrested from Telangana. While two accused – identified as Sanjay Mandal and Animal Vaidya – were arrested from Kolkata, the other two – identified as Sanjay Rokade and Mukesh Dive – were arrested from Titwala.

Mumbai: Five members of a gang were arrested for allegedly impersonating police officers and extorting money from several women by threatening to register FIRs against them in Mumbai and Pune.

The gang was using the name of DCP Ajay Bansal and had duped at least three women from Pune and two from Mumbai, said a police officer from Bangur Nagar Police Station, adding, “The gang used to coordinate through Telegram and Rao used to send orders there.” (Image for representation)

The mastermind of the gang – identified as D Srinivas Rao, 47 – was arrested from Telangana. While two accused – identified as Sanjay Mandal and Animal Vaidya – were arrested from Kolkata, the other two – identified as Sanjay Rokade and Mukesh Dive – were arrested from Titwala.

The gang was using the name of DCP Ajay Bansal and had duped at least three women from Pune and two from Mumbai, said a police officer from Bangur Nagar Police Station, adding, “The gang used to coordinate through Telegram and Rao used to send orders there.”

“The latest victim was a 29-year-old vice president with a private bank. The frauds pretended to be officers from the Mumbai Police Crime Branch and duped the woman of ₹3.93 lakh. She was asked to transfer the amount to verify her bank account, claiming her account showed a cryptocurrency refund of ₹47 lakh,” added the officer.

Last week, she received a call and the caller enquired with her about the courier case and told her that the customs had found bank documents, a laptop, a gold chain and MD in the parcel. The fraud told her that cybercrime inspector Ajay Kumar Bansal will talk to her on Skype about the case.

“Since her mobile phone displayed the number of Andheri Police Station, she trusted the fraud. The woman was then told that the bank documents in the parcel showed that her account had received ₹47 lakh in cryptocurrency and that they would need to verify her bank account. The fraud told her that she would have to send ₹98,326 from four different accounts and that the transactions would be overseen by an RBI officer. She, accordingly, made the transactions,” said the police officer.

Upon realising that she was duped, the woman called up the Vanrai Police Station and learnt that Bansal was the DCP of zone 11 and two women from Pune were also cheated with a similar kind of modus operandi, added the officer.

As per the police, an initial probe has revealed that the mastermind of the gang is staying outside India and Rao was acting as the handler in India and was operating the gang on a commission basis. “He used to transfer the fraudulent amount converting it into crypto to the main accused abroad,” said the officer. “Rao has trained his teenage son also in the crime and recently the 17-year-old has started handling the nationwide gang.”