One held for cheating online alcohol buyers

A special team of Bandra police on Thursday arrested a 21-year-old, who was part of a gang that operated from Rajasthan and duped people in the city looking to buy

A special team of Bandra police on Thursday arrested a 21-year-old, who was part of a gang that operated from Rajasthan and duped people in the city looking to buy alcohol online.

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Akhilesh Singh was arrested from Bharatpur in Rajasthan.

Police recovered three ATM cards and four SIM cards from the accused. Two others, Khushiran Gurjar and Shribhan Gurjar, are on the run.

The accused would replace phone numbers of wine shops listed online with their own numbers. They would then convince customers looking to order alcohol to share their debit or credit card details, and withdraw money.

Dr Manoj Kumar Sharma, additional commissioner of police (west), formed the special team after noticing that crimes with a similar modus operandi had risen drastically in Bandra and Khar over the past four months. “The three ATM cards recovered show around 100 transactions. The SIM cards recovered are registered in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Rajasthan,” said a police officer.

In one of the most recent cases against Singh and his aides, a 40-year-old Bandra resident was cheated of ₹1.27 lakh after he tried to buy alcohol online. A first information report (FIR) was registered against the accused under relevant sections of the Information Technology (IT) Act. “We managed to locate the accused and a special team was dispatched to Rajasthan,” said an officer.