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Bihar: Interstate online fraud racket busted, 16 arrested in Gaya
The arrested members of the gang obtained numbers and addresses of online shoppers and lured customers with attractive offers
The Bihar Police busted an interstate gang of alleged cybercriminals when it arrested 16 of its members from a Bodh-Gaya rest house.
Police seized 40 ATM cards, 12 bank passbooks, 24 smart phones, 12 feature phones, 12 SIM cards, 14 fake stamps, fake ID cards, 2kg gold-type coins, laptop, two colour printer, 2,500 scratches card, 1,700 envelopes, 10kg pamphlets, copies, diaries, registers, contraband liquor bottles and three motorcycles from their possession.
Of the 16 members, eight were from Karnataka, one from Kolkata, five from Gaya and two from Nawada in Bihar. The kingpin of the gang is said to be one Raushan Kumar, who is a BTech dropout. Police said that Kumar, currently still at large, put the gang together.
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Gaya SSP Aditya Kumar said that the eight men from Bengaluru stayed in Gaya to learn the modus operandi.
Kumar said that the arrested members of the gang obtained numbers and addresses of online shoppers through Amazon, Flipkart, ShopClues and Naaptol. “They lured customers with attractive offers and managed to capture their credentials. They also sent them scratch coupons, pamphlets with fake gold coins by post and offered gifts to scratch coupon winners,” he added.
The Karnataka men confessed to their crime and also divulged how they had been operating for the past several months. According to the SSP, the criminals confessed to making fraudulent withdrawals in a number of states.
The investigating officers are still trying to trace the victims of the scam and have requested people who have been conned by the accused to contact Gaya Police.
