8 accounts, 82 lakhs and "customer support": an online fraud in Jharkhand

Two men were arrested from Jharkhand for allegedly cheating several people on the pretext of giving them services through customer care support, police said on Thursday.

Abhishek Kumar (22) and his accomplice Raju Ansari (22) were arrested from Dumka in Jharkhand, they said.

Kumar who is the mastermind behind the crime used to upload his contact number on internet in the name of various customer care sites. He has been running his gang from past six months and his accomplice Ansari arranged the bank accounts from his native village of Asansol, West Bangal, police said.

Eight bank accounts having ₹ 82 lakhs cheated from multiple victims has been been freezed, they said.

The matter came to light after one of the victim who was duped of ₹ 4.78 lakhs by the accused approached the police. According to the police, the victim filed a complaint alleging that on January 7, he got the accused's number while searching customer care number of makemytrip.com for getting the refund amount from the site.

He conveyed his grievances to the caller who impersonated himself as an employee of 'make my trip' department, police said.

As directed by the fraudster, the victim filled up a form which was sent by him on his phone. Then he also installed the Anydesk App and SMS forwarded App in his phone on the accused's instructions. After that an amount ₹ 4,78,278 was deducted from his HDFC bank account, police said.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Shahdara) R Sathiyasundram said the mobile phone of the accused was found switched off. After analyzing the accused's bank details, it came to know that the accused withdrew cash from different vendors. Cyber Team analyzed the transaction details of victim's account and found that cheated amount has been routed at different platform.

"On investigation, it revealed that shopping was made from Bigbazar, Bhagalpur, Bihar, make my trip travel vouchers and I-phone 12 and 3 gold bar was delivered at Dumka, Jharkhand. After, conducting technical investigation, it was found that the cheater's network is based at Dumka, Jharkhand. Then raid was conducted at Dumka and the two accused were nabbed," he said.

During the course of interrogation, accused Abhishek disclosed that he uploads his mobile number on Google Ads for customer support care of filpkart, make my trip, airlines. On receiving call from victim, he directs the victim to fill the form and instruct him to install "Any Desk App". After installing the App, he can monitor and control the screen of victim through Any Desk App and upload SMS forwarder App in the complainant mobile to route the bank SMS, the officer said.

"After collecting the victim's card details, he sends the money at different online platform i.e., Flipkart, Payu, Make my Trip and online bank accounts. I-phone 12 was recovered from him which was purchased by the cheated amount. The fake account were opened though online on the basis of Aadhaar and Pan card details," the DCP said.