With the arrest of 12 people, including two women from Noida, the Special Cell of the Delhi Police has busted an illegal module that was running a fake online redressal system with the scamsters pretending to be Government officials. Police said that the syndicate has cheated around 3,000 victims across the country.
Police said that the scamsters were duping those individuals, who tried to lodge a complaint regarding online cheating. “They charged the victims (already cheated) processing fees and subsequently stopped responding by blocking them,” said police.
According to KPS Malthora, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of the Special Cell, inputs were received that some racketeers are employing various mechanisms to defraud the victims of online cheating by projecting themselves as Government officials on the fraudulently created web pages having similar nomenclature as of the Government complaint redressal system. “Further, a complaint was also received, wherein the complainant had alleged that while he was trying to complain about an incident of cheating, he came across a website, www.jansurkashakendara.in, claiming to be a crime reporting portal. He called on the mobile phone number provided on the website and on the pretext of lodging and enquiring his complaint, the alleged persons charged Rs 2,850 from him,” said the DCP.
“Further, the accused persons have created some more similar websites with names Jan Shikayat Kendra, Grahak Suraksha Kendra, Nyaya Bharat and others,” said the DCP. “Once the payment was received, the complainant’s number was blocked by the accused. A First Information Report (FIR) under Sections 419, 420 and 120B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was registered and investigation was taken up,” said the DCP. “Whenever anybody is a victim of cyber-crime, they should report it on the Government portal https://www.cybercrime.gov.in/ and call the helpline number 155260. No Government office charges any processing fee for putting Government machinery in action,” the DCP added.
“During investigation, police team found seven more similar complaints registered at National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal. One FIR was also found registered in Karnataka. The bank account details of the payment gateways and was collected and analysed. During scrutiny, it was revealed that the fraudsters have received Rs 1.74 crore in the past year,” said the DCP.
“Based on technical and human intelligence, a total 12 people including two women were arrested,” said the DCP.
Explaining the modus operandi of the module, the DCP said that the accused persons have created a website in the name of www.Jansurakshakendra.in and attracted the cybercrime victims to lodge complaints on their website.
“They used the method of search engine optimisation to attract traffic and make their website listed on Google search engine, whenever search queries are generated by the users,” said the DCP.
“When the victims used to call on the phone numbers given on the website, the accused pretended to themselves as Government officials. They used to charge money from the victims ranging from Rs.500 to Rs 30,000 on the pretext of lodging and enquiring their complaint. After receiving the money, the accused persons generally blocked the number of victims,” said the DCP.
