At least 27 people from 11 states involved in various cyber frauds have been arrested during a week-long pan-India crackdown, Delhi Police said on Sunday, adding that they had recovered 25 mobile phones, 28 SIM cards, 20 banking cards, and other incriminating documents.
The arrested were suspected in 10 reported cases of cyber crime which involved cheated money worth over ₹1.5 crore, police added in a statement.
Beyond the cases they were arrested in, police also found 150 complaints against them lodged on the national cybercrime reporting portal (NCRP) and involved ₹13.91 crore of cheated money.
The arrests include those who were directly involved in the cyber crimes by allowing members of cyber syndicates to use their bank accounts for illegal transactions and receiving commission for the use of their accounts, said deputy commissioner of police (west) Sharad Bhaskar Darade.
DCP Darade said that the 10 cyber crime cases were registered this year and last year at the cyber police station of west district and they were investigated by multiple teams, with 33 police personnel, led by station house officer (SHO) Vikas Kumar Buldak.
Through technical investigation and human intelligence networks, the teams collected information about the bank accounts that were used for transferring the cheated money and the beneficiaries. Accordingly, the suspects in the cases were identified and their whereabouts in different states were confirmed.
“After complete verification, 11 raiding teams, each having three personnel, conducted simultaneous raids in 11 states –Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar, between February 21 and February 27. They arrested 27 people,” said Darade.
Police said the nationwide crackdown mainly targeted people involved in investment frauds, .APK file frauds, impersonation through social media, credit card frauds, task-based frauds and visa frauds. The arrested people were identified as Sukhprit Singh, a 38-year-old resident of Uttarakhand; Rama Shankar (42) from Delhi’s Dayalpur; Deepak Mehta (22) from Haryana’s Faridabad; Vansh Walia (20) from Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh; Charanpreet Singh (38) from Punjab’s Amritsar; Abhishek (21) from Nalanda in Bihar; Kishan Motiram Khare (28) from Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, Maharashtra; as well as Shyam Sahni (21), Vishal (20), Abhay Pal (20) and Shubham (30) from Rishikesh, Uttarakhand.
The other arrested were identified as Nirmal Dhanka (25) from Rajasthan’s Kanota; Shekhar (25) from Bhilwara in Rajasthan, Anuj Kumar (22) from Lakhimpur Kheri, Tanveer Ahmad Sheikh (21) from Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir; Mohammad Rashid Ansari (36); Maksood Hassan (40) and Mohammad Qasim (22) from Firozabad, UP, Faisal (28) from Aligarh, UP; Angrez Singh (29) from Fazilka, Punjab; Akash Seth (26) from West Bengal; Suhail Chaudhary (20) from Muzaffar Nagar, UP; Arjun Suthar (28) and Rahul Patidar (23) from Madhya Pradesh’s Neemuch; Sachin Gupta (41) from UP’s Etah; as well as Saurabh Panchal (26) and Saurabh Shrivastav (26) from Madhya Pradesh.
Police said Sukhprit Singh, who earlier worked with the United Nations (UN) as a data entry operator, duped the complainant of ₹15 lakh after impersonating a World Health Organisation (WHO) official and promising him visa for his son and his friends using his strong connections with ambassadors of various countries.