Three arrested for running online shopping racket, duping 100 people

Phase 2 police on Tuesday arrested three people and claimed to have busted an online shopping racket in Noida that cheated people by making fake bookings and extracting

Phase 2 police on Tuesday arrested three people and claimed to have busted an online shopping racket in Noida that cheated people by making fake bookings and extracting advance payments from customers, but failing to deliver their products.

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The suspects, police said, had been operating for around a year and had cheated over 100 people.

Ankur Agarwal, additional DCP, Noida Central, said that the incident came to light after a money transfer agent from Gejha village filed a complaint in Phase II police station on Monday. The complainant said that some men had contacted him a few months ago for availing his service, following which his account had been frozen.

Agarwal said that the police registered a case and launched an investigation into the matter. “We found that a number of transactions had been made in the complainant’s account, with the money being deposited from Delhi NCR, and from other states. The bank had later frozen his account due to suspicious transactions,” he said.

The police tracked the mobile phones of the suspects - Abdul Hannan, Suhaib Hasan and Nishant Alam - and arrested them on Tuesday. The suspects are natives of Moradabad and they lived on a rented accommodation in Supertech Ecociti in Noida Sector 137.

Agarwal said that the three suspects had a unique modus operandi. “They used to place advertisements on social networking sites for various mobile phones, headphones and other electronic equipment at 50% discount. They used to convince customers that the products will be booked and delivered from a leading e-commerce website,” he said.

Once a customer contacted the suspects, the suspects used to book the products using fake bank details. “The suspects revealed that they used to book the product themselves on behalf of customers. They entered fake bank details for booking the products online. As a security measure, in case wrong bank account details are fed, the bank automatically cancels the booking in five to ten minutes. But the suspects used to take screenshots of the booking in those 5-10 minutes and shared them with the customers,” he said. The suspects then asked the customers to pay 50% of the money in advance and the rest was to be paid, once the product was delivered.

Agarwal said that the suspects were aware that if they used their own bank accounts, they will land in the police net. “To evade surveillance, they approached a money transaction agent. The suspects used his account and used to get cash from the money transaction agent after giving him some commission,” he said. Agarwal said that the agent had no role in the racket.

Police recovered nine mobile phones, Rs 1.22 lakh in cash and one high-end motorcycle from the possession of the suspects. A case has been registered against them under Section 420 (cheating) of IPC and Section 66 of IT Act. “The suspects were produced in court and sent to judicial custody,” Anita Chauhan, SHO Phase II police station.