Kota, Oct 23 (PTI) Jhalawar police claimed to have busted a major interstate cybercrime module allegedly involved in siphoning funds from government welfare schemes by misusing documents of their victims, an official said on Thursday.
The police have also arrested 30 persons, including the alleged mastermind of the operation, and recovered Rs 52.69 lakh in cash, 14 luxury cars, 35 laptops and hundreds of identity documents from the accused.
According to police, the action was part of Operation Shutter Down against cybercrime modules and included 70 police teams — 30 involved in raids in as many locations in four cities in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and 30 others on reserve, with an additional 10 on alert.
Addressing the press on Thursday, Jhalawar SP Amit Kumar said the police registered an FIR on Tuesday after over two months of technical investigation following an anonymous input received on August 8.
The investigation revealed several bank accounts linked to a single mobile number, with frequent cash deposits and withdrawals, he said.
The investigation also found that four individuals from Jhalawar, namely Ashique Ali, Parmanand Meena, Mahaveer Pareta and Sunil Sahu, obtained bank and identity documents of some people under the guise of making them eligible for government schemes.
All four individuals were found to be linked to Ramavatar Saini of Bandikui in Dausa district and were fraudulently availing financial benefits, the officer said.
Police teams carried out raids at 30 locations, simultaneously in Jaipur Rural, Dausa and Jhalawar in Rajasthan and Rajgarh in Madhya Pradesh, and nabbed 30 persons of the module, including the alleged mastermind, Ramavatar Saini, the senior officer said.
Investigation found that Ramavatar, who had knowledge of government schemes and their portals, would take Aadhaar and bank accounts from poor villagers and make them fake beneficiaries.
Subsequently, he would have crores of rupees transferred to these accounts from Prime Minister Kisan Samman Nidhi, pension and relief schemes and collect them through agents, police said.
The police teams recovered Rs 52.69 lakh in cash, 14 luxury cars, 16 two-wheelers, 35 laptops, 68 mobile phones, besides 430 ATM cards, 193 SIM cards, 96 cheque books and around 900 bank and identity documents from the possession of the accused, SP Kumar said.
At least 11,000 banks accounts with suspected fraudulent transactions were found with the accused, the SP asserted.
A Special Investigation Team has been formed for further investigation into the matter and a separate four-member team has been constituted in collaboration with State Bank of India local branch staff for analysis of financial data, he further said. PTI COR ARB AMJ AMJ
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