Delhi Police arrest three for running online banking racket

Police said the racketeers allegedly extracted details of bank account holders such as debit/credit card and CVV numbers by posing as bank managers or employees of nationalised banks on the pretext of renewing their cards and generated OTPs.

Three members of an online banking racket that allegedly operated from Maoist-hit regions of Jharkhand’s Jamtara and cheated hundreds of people by siphoning off money from their bank accounts have been arrested, Delhi Police said on Tuesday.

Three men of a gang which was running an online banking racket were arrested by Delhi Police. (Photo for representative purpose only) (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Seven members of the gang were arrested last year from Punjab and Jamtara.

Police said the racketeers allegedly extracted details of bank account holders such as debit/credit card and CVV numbers by posing as bank managers or employees of nationalised banks on the pretext of renewing their cards and generated OTPs.

The arrested men are Chandan Mandal,19, from Jamtara, Manoj Hari,29, and Pappu Kumar Singh,27, both from Burdman in West Bengal. Seven mobile phones, 21 SIM cards, 11 ATM cards, six bank passbooks, and three cheque books were seized from them.

Additional commissioner of police (crime) AK Singla said the investigation was launched following a complaint filed on July 2017 by one Prabeer Kumar Basu, saying R 50,000 was illegally withdrawn from his account after a fake bank employee tricked him into sharing the bank’s details.

Investigators identified the caller as Chandan Mandal and found that he allegedly transferred the money into multiple e-wallets. They tracked the string of the transactions and found the money trail in Punjab, Jharkhand and West Bengal.

“Mandal was arrested from Jamtara. The other two were caught from Burdwan,” said Bhisham Singh, deputy commissioner of police (crime).

Police said Mandal belongs to a poor family from Jamtara and dropped out of studies after Class12.

“Due to poor financial condition, he started cheating in the year 2015 and earned a good amount of money. His lifestyle attracted many jobless people and they together formed a gang,” Singh said.