New Delhi: In a joint operation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Interpol, Delhi Police has arrested four men for alleged involvement in an international cyber crime syndicate, the police said in a statement Sunday.
They were produced in Delhi’s Patiala House Court Saturday and sent to five-day police custody. Evidence of alleged fraud worth over $20 million has been collected so far by the agencies, the statement added.
According to the Delhi Police statement, the agency’s Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit — which handles complex cyber crimes — had been receiving information through informers about cyber criminals based in India, the US, and Uganda “running call centres by posing as employees of US Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration, Drug Enforcement Administration and other US Agencies”. The FBI was getting similar intelligence from Interpol.
One of the accused, Parth Armarkar, allegedly impersonated a person who had earlier served as the acting administrator of the US Drug Enforcement Administration and as the director of Interpol, Washington.
According to Delhi Police, Armarkar allegedly duped people of over $6 million through call centres in Uganda. FBI inputs helped the police arrest Armarkar from Ahmedabad, Gujarat, from where he was allegedly operating a part of the syndicate.
“He was operating his criminal activities mainly out of Uganda… he also ran some part of his activities from different jurisdictions of India in assistance with his international co-conspirators,” the police added.
Armarkar’s arrest was followed by that of the alleged head of the syndicate — Vatsal Mehta. Further investigation led the police to the other two accused, Deepak Arora and Prashant Kumar, in Uttarakhand. They had been on the FBI radar for a long time, according to the police.
“As part of coordinated action, the FBI has interviewed over 50 people so far and also collected evidence of fraud of more than 20 million USD which will be produced in court as per procedure,” said the statement.
A First Information Report (FIR) against the four was lodged under sections 419 (cheating done by impersonation), 420 (cheating), 384 (extortion), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 34 (acts by many in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 66C (identity theft) and 66D (impersonation) of the IT Act, said the statement.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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