Hyderabad: Gang busted for conning people with fake franchise

Hyderabad: The Cyberabad Cyber Crime Police busted a fake franchise gang that lured people of Rs 94.9 lakh by creating fake KFC websites.

The arrested persons were Rakesh Kumar, Mohammad Khalid, Yogender Kumar, Pankaj Saraswat, Sarita and Roshni Singh Goutam. A total of seven mobile phones, three laptops, five CPUs, and one LED projector along with cheque books, debit cards, SIM cards was seized from them.

The accused were booked under sections 420, 467, 468, 120(B) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 66-C, 66-D ITA-2000-2008 of Cyber Crime Commissionerate.

Police said the gang who operated from UP and Bihar collected details of people interested in getting a dealership and designed fake websites where they promised them franchises at attractive costs and collected payments under the garb of franchise fees, agreement fees, NOC, fees for interior, woodwork infrastructure setup etc. "The accused Rakesh Kumar, Mohammad Khalid, the mastermind, recruited Khalid for website development and Gagan, Pankaj, and Roshini, Arpitha for tele-calling, along with Yugender for running ads through SEO," said Cyberabad Police Commissioner, Stephen Raveendra. He along with his tele-callers convinced victims to initiate payment and shared mule bank accounts with the victims and got transfers done into them.

Gaining the trust of the victim by sending confirmation emails through a fake KFC domain, Rakesh also deputed someone to make a visit to the sitefor confirmation and initiated the interior work at the site.

To bluff the victims, the accused procured a landline virtual number to communicate with victims from Mumbai while operating from Noida. They impersonate company executives (account managers, senior managers, etc.) and made conversations over fake emails and acknowledged the victim's payments with fake invoices.

Likewise, fake websites of well-known brands like IFFCO, ITC, TATA 1MG, Herbal Ayurveda, Jockey and many others were also developed by the gang.

Police advised the citizens to verify the authenticity of the websites shown on the internet by visiting their corporate offices and checking the original name and IFSC code of the bank accounts before making payments. Citizens have also been advised to learn the process of establishing franchises and avoid making transactions before verification.