The Delhi Police has arrested a man who had allegedly duped a senior diplomat as well as multiple other innocent persons across the country for amounts over a crore rupees in the national Capital.

The accused has been identified as Akram, a resident of Shaheen Bagh area.

According to Atul Kumar Thakur, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), South district, an First Information Report (FIR) was registered under section 420 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and 66-C IT Act after email of a senior diplomat was hacked and cheating of approx Rs 140,000/ from his email's contact persons asking for monetary help came to light.

“The cyber cell of South district, analyzed various bank accounts, linked mobile phones with the beneficiary bank accounts. All the SIM and bank accounts were on the basis of fake addresses. Police team finally on the basis of technical surveillance found a lead to the alleged beneficiary accounts and from other prevailing situations,” said the DCP.

“On July 25, after receiving specific inputs, one accused, Akram, was nabbed. During interrogation, the accused confessed to his crime and told police that the accused used to provide rooms on rent to the poor people/ labourers and used to get their savings and current bank accounts. For this, he at first used to get their addresses changed on the Aadhar card for account opening. Thereafter, he procured a SIM card at the said address and later he opened their savings and current bank accounts,” said the DCP.

 “Thereafter, Akram used to again shift the account holders from their addresses mentioned in the bank account to avoid being traced out by the police. He used to open more than 4-5 accounts in different banks in the name of one person for this purpose,” said the DCP. .

Explaining the modus operandi of the accused, the DCP said that Akram used to provide the bank accounts to one associate who was in touch with some foreign nationals and cheaters who after committing cheating got deposited the amount in these bank accounts procured.

“The accused used to commit cheating with innocent people on the pretext of various social engineering including sending email grabbers to hack email ID and thereafter to demand money from the victim's contact,” said the DCP adding that further investigation is going on.