Three cyber fraudsters arrested from Jharkhand

Kolkata: The city police on Friday busted a cyber fraud racket operating from Jamtara district of Jharkhand by arresting three youths who made huge sums of money by duping customers ready to make online table bookings in restaurants.

The three accused, all in their early 30s, were picked up from their respective residences in Jamtara district by cyber police station personnel following consecutive raids, said Joint Commissioner (Crime), Murlidhar Sharma.

The accused -- Rahim Ansari (31), Nasrul Ansari and Md. Azharuddin (both 30) -- were presented before the court of the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jamtara, who granted one-day transit remand.

Sharma said on November 16 a complaint was received from an official of Speciality Restaurants Limited Debasish Ghosh that some unknown miscreants were fraudulently collecting huge sums of money by including one mobile number into the Google advertisement of the restaurant for table booking.

"When the customers used to contact that number, they were instructed to pay an amount of Rs 10 to book the table through a link provided by the accused persons. Being duped, when the customers clicked on the link, a good amount was debited from their account into a fake Paytm UPI account."

"In this way, they fraudulently collected huge amounts of money which caused wrongful loss to Ghosh's company," said Sharma.

A case was registered through Cyber Police Station, Kolkata, under section 66C/66D of Information Technology Act, and Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery with the intention of cheating, 469 (Forgery for purpose of harming reputation) Aand 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the Indian Penal Code.

During the investigation, after scrutinising the call data records of the alleged mobile number and Paytm registered mobile number, the police ascertained that the locations of the phone numbers were in Jamtara in Jharkhand and Jamuria of West Bengal and its adjacent area.

"On examining the statement of the PayTM account, it was revealed that the maximum amount was transferred into an account of Kuruwa branch of the State Bank of India in Jamtara held by Rahim Ansari," he said.

After collecting the relevant information and documents, the police conducted the raids and picked up the suspects.

Five mobile phones, SIM cards, bank account passbooks, cheque books, PAN Card and Adhaar card were seized from their possession.