With the arrest of two men from Rajasthan and Uttarakhand, the Delhi Police’s Crime Branch has busted a gang of cyber cheats who used to dupe people on the pretext of hotel booking through fake websites, an official said on Thursday.
The accused were identified as Devo Singh (22), a resident of district Bharatpur, Rajasthan, and Maan Singh alias Mangat (24), a resident of district Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand.
According to police, a complaint was received from Ambika Parshad Sharma, a resident of Dilshad Garden wherein it was reported that in October 2022, he wanted to visit Dwarkadhish Temple in Gujarat.
“Accordingly he searched hotels for accommodation and got details online of one hotel — Kokila Dhiraj Dham, Dwarka, Gujarat — along with the mobile number. The complainant contacted the said mobile number and one Nirmal introduced himself as the manager of the hotel. The alleged person cheated the complainant and took Rs 1,03,102,” said Ravindra Singh Yadav, the Special Commissioner of Police (Crime).
During investigation, the police team interrogated two beneficiary account holders Jagjeet and Shivam, who stated that the alleged bank accounts were opened by Maan Singh.
“Maan Singh was arrested, who on interrogation disclosed that he had opened the bank accounts of poor and illiterate people. After that he sold these accounts along with ATM cards, passbooks, and cheque books to the cyber cheats for Rs 10,000 per bank account,” said Yadav.
To trace the cyber cheats, the police team obtained details of additional 10 bank accounts and analysed more than 40 CCTV footages of different ATMs.
“After thorough technical analysis, it has been established that the cheats used to withdraw the cash amount from different ATMs in Jaipur, Rajasthan and two persons were seen withdrawing cheated amounts in the footages of the ATM,” said Yadav.
“Subsequently, Devo Singh was identified and he was arrested from Jaipur. He on interrogation disclosed that on the directions of one Khushi Ram, he used to withdraw cash from different ATM machines. He had withdrawn around Rs 10 lakh within 10 days from different ATMs,” the Special CP added.
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