Two juveniles working as field executives for a digital payments company were apprehended for allegedly duping people on the pretext of installing barcodes, police said on Friday.

The accused allegedly discreetly activated the victims' e-wallet postpaid accounts and siphoned off money. The victims could detect the cheating only after they received alerts from the company to repay the money, they said.

The accused are Class 11 students of a government school and got the job by using the identity of an adult friend. A complaint was lodged by Ashish Kumar, an e-rickshaw driver who alleged that he was duped of Rs 60,000, the police said.  He revealed that the two boys came to him and suggested applying for UPI (Unified Payments Interface) barcodes for easy online payments.

They told him that the service was free and allegedly transferred Rs 60,000 from his account while using the application on the victim's mobile phone, a senior police officer said.

The police received another complaint where a victim was duped with a similar modus operandi. The juveniles were nabbed from Nangloi, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Sagar Singh Kalsi said.

They revealed that one of them learnt about a part-time job of installing barcodes of a digital payments company and started working by using the ID of an adult acquaintance, Kalsi said.

This fascinated the other accused who started accompanying him, the police said.

They used to go to random places and install barcodes for vegetable vendors and autorickshaw drivers, among others. They used the victims' e-wallets to instal the barcodes. Later, they realised that this gave them the opportunity to cheat the account holders, the police added.

The juveniles allegedly duped three persons of Rs 60,000, 8,000 and 8,000. They spent the money to lead a flashy lifestyle and impress their girlfriends, they added.