New Delhi, Sep 3 (PTI) Three men, including a Common Service Centre (CSC) wallet operator and a SIM card distributor, have been arrested from Uttar Pradesh for allegedly facilitating a cyber fraud network that cheated a 72-year-old man of nearly Rs 2 lakh, police said on Thursday.
The accused have been identified as Ashish Kumar (24), Amit Kumar (23) and Umesh Chand (37), police said, adding that they were apprehended from Shahjahanpur, Hardoi and Lakhimpur Kheri districts respectively.
According to police, the victim had applied for a solar power connection and initiated the process to change the name on his existing Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (TPDDL) electricity connection.
“On July 18, the victim received a call from a person who claimed to be associated with the electricity connection name-change process and told him that an additional payment of Rs 13 was required,” a senior police officer said.
The caller allegedly sent an APK file over WhatsApp and induced the victim to install it and make the payment. Soon after, Rs 1.99 lakh was siphoned off from his bank account.
An e-FIR was subsequently registered and a probe was launched.
Police said a team analysed call detail records, IMEI details, IP logs and financial transactions and kept surveillance on around 100 suspected mobile numbers and associated devices, the officer said.
The technical investigation led police to Shahjahanpur, Hardoi and Lakhimpur Kheri, where the three accused were arrested within a short span during a field operation covering around 1,000 km.
The investigation revealed that the cheated money was routed through a payment gateway to a CSC merchant and subsequently transferred to a CSC wallet registered in the name of “Ashish Kumar Jansewa Kendra”, police said.
Ashish, who held a CSC licence in his name, was not actually operating the centre and had allegedly shared his wallet ID and password with Amit Kumar, the officer added.
Amit allegedly procured CSC wallets, passwords and bank accounts and replaced linked mobile numbers with fake ones. He also retained SIM cards issued to customers during porting and misused them for operating CSC wallets and facilitating fraudulent transactions.
He provided wallet details to Umesh for a five per cent commission on the credited amount. Umesh, in turn, shared the details with another associate, Ram Das.
Police said scrutiny of bank records has so far revealed transactions exceeding Rs 2.50 crore through the recovered accounts, while five cyber fraud complaints from different states have been linked to them.
“Five mobile phones, 20 SIM cards, nine passbooks, six cheque books, 15 debit/credit cards and a biometric fingerprint machine were recovered from the accused,” the officer said.
Further investigation is underway to trace the complete money trail. PTI BM NB
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