Man held from Punjab for duping retired UP cop of ₹31 lakh

Noida: The cyber crime department of Gautam Budh Nagar police on Friday arrested a 48-year-old man for allegedly impersonating as a treasury officer and duping lakhs of rupees from several pensioners of Uttar Pradesh Police

Noida: The cyber crime department of Gautam Budh Nagar police on Friday arrested a 48-year-old man for allegedly impersonating as a treasury officer and duping lakhs of rupees from several pensioners of Uttar Pradesh Police. According to police, the suspect who was arrested from Punjab is a part of the infamous Jamtara gang and used the UP Police personnel’s unique identification number to dupe the pensioners.

Man held from Punjab for duping retired UP cop of ₹31 lakh

According to Reeta Yadav, in-charge of Cyber Crime police station in Noida’s Sector 36, the arrest was made in connection to an FIR lodged at the police station on October 22, 2020, by a Baghpat-based resident alleging that his father, who retired from the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) of the UP Police, was duped of ₹31 lakh by a person posing as a treasury officer.

“My father got a call from unidentified persons claiming to be treasury officers of the state government. They told him that they were working to process his documents for pension payment order (PPO) but needed the one-time password (OTP) in order to do so. My father followed their instructions, but he later realised that ₹31.10 lakh was deducted from his bank account via net banking,” the complaint said.

According to Yadav, on the basis of the complaint, an FIR was registered at the Cyber Crime police station under sections of cheating and forgery of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and relevant sections of the Information Technology (IT) Act against the unidentified suspects.

“While working on the case, the names of two suspects came to light — Noor Ali and his father Shamser Ali. Noor (30), was earlier arrested on August 2, 2021 from Punjab and sent to jail after being produced before a court. On Friday, his father Shamser (48), was also arrested from Punjab’s Fatehgarh Sahib,” said Yadav.

Yadav added that the two suspects are natives of Bihar but lived in Fatehgarh Sahib. “During investigation, it was found that Shamser’s second son studied in Punjab years ago and got in touch with scamsters from Jharkhand’s Jamtara and joined the cyber fraud gang. Both Shamser and Noor also got involved with the same gang,” she said, adding that the police had recovered ₹3 crore from Noor’s bank accounts.

Yadav said that the fraudsters used the retired police officer’s nine-digit unique identification number (PNO) number to dupe him. “Through the PNO, the officer’s details were publicly available online which were used by the suspects to gain trust and make him believe that they were calling from the government department. Thereafter, they got details of his bank accounts and withdrew money via net banking,” said Yadav.

Yadav added that the gang has been involved in several such frauds in the last couple of years. “During interrogation, it was found that Shamsher has so far duped over 15 pensioners in the name of processing the PPO and over 100 people in the name of updating KYC documents. It is estimated that the suspects have duped over ₹10 crore from their victims till date. His transactions are being checked by police,” she said.

Yadav added that the suspect was produced before a court and sent to judicial custody on Friday.