Noida: 21 held for posing as online vendors, duping wholesalers

The gang would send out advertisements on WhatsApp to businesses looking to sell their products on e-commerce websites, with their fake credentials, cops said.

The Noida Police have arrested 21 members of a gang accused of posing as vendors from reputable e-commerce platforms and defrauding wholesale sellers of several lakhs of rupees, police said on Wednesday.

Sector 63 police station has arrested 20 people for running a fake call center in Sector 63. (Sunil Ghosh/HT Photo)

The arrests were made on Wednesday following a series of complaints, according to Shakti Mohan Avasthy, deputy commissioner of police (central Noida). According to Avasthy, the gang would claim to have certifications from reputed e-commerce platforms. “The suspects showed the sellers that they are certified from reputed e-commerce platforms like Nykaa, Myntra, Etsy, and eBay, and would promise to display their products on the websites in return for commission in terms of hefty fees,” Avasthy said.

The gang operated under the company name “Infobeam Solutions” from Sector 63, Noida. According to the DCP, the operation was masterminded by Jogendra Kumar, 34, and Gunjan Katyal, 25, from Delhi, along with Akash Sharma, 30, from Ghaziabad.

“The gang was busted after multiple business owners submitted a complaint with the Cyber Help Desk at the Sector 63 Police Station over the last one month. The complainants said the company, Infobeam Solutions, posed as an authorised partner of e-commerce platforms and promised to help them get their products sold online in exchange for commission,” said Avasthy.

The remaining suspects worked as sales executives and assisted the prime suspects in defrauding sellers. The police have identified them as Gopal Saxena, 25, Reyansh Sharma, 27, Ravi Kumar, 25, Kartik Mishra, 21, and Pradeep Kumar, 28, from Noida; Himanshu Sharma, 27, Akhil Garg, 25, Nishant, 24, Akash Yadav, 24, Pankaj Upadhyay, 30, Lokesh Chaudhary, 22, Mukul Tyagi, 20, Gunjan Chauhan, 30, and Purti (goes by a single name), 21, from Ghaziabad; Saras Bharadwaj, 33, Anil Kumar, 31, and Sweety (goes by a single name), 23, from Ghaziabad; and Monica Verma, 35, from Lucknow.

According to officials, the gang would send out advertisements on WhatsApp to businesses looking to sell their products on e-commerce websites, with their fake credentials.

“Anyone can enlist as a seller on such e-commerce websites, but this gang posed as authorised from such platforms and displayed forged certificates to dupe the sellers. They targeted sellers outside Uttar Pradesh, making contracts and charging fees to place products online. They took ₹10,000-20,000 per sale as a commission. If the product didn’t sell, they would not return the sellers’ money,” Avasthy explained.