Mumbai Cyber Crime Bust: Police Arrest 5 From Odisha For Defrauding Victims In Scam

Mumbai: The West Cyber Police of the Mumbai Police have apprehended four individuals who duped an individual to the tune of Rs 43 lakhs on the pretext of offering part-time job. The investigation was handled by two women police officers who busted the syndicate involved in cybercrimes operated from Odisha.

According to police officials, the matter first surfaced in February when the complainant approached the police and a case was registered at the cyber police station in the western division. The victim was told that the part-time job was prepaid and that a principal amount was to be invested following for him to get handsome returns.

The cyber police began the investigation in the matter with two women police officers - PI Savita Shinde and API Poonam Jadhav looking into the technical part. The bank accounts which were involved in the cyber crime were looked into and they were traced. As expected, the accounts turned out to be dummy - which means, Shinde explained, “These accounts were made by fraudsters using random individuals' security documents - for which these individuals receive petty amounts in return.”

Shinde further explained how this fraud has turned into a business and has taken over the entire village. “Everyone has a duty to serve, like for instance one, the front person, approaches the victim after securing their background history. Another collects dummy bank accounts, while other deals with the bank formalities - all in illegal ways,” she said, adding that banks have a significant role. “If banks start a stricter procedure of creating bank accounts, these types of crime will go down in numbers,” she added.

Meanwhile, the police team which was deployed to Odisha managed to arrest five people - identified as Pramodkumar Behre (26), Rakeshkumar Chowdhary (25), Suvendu Das (30), Jaydeep Parida (24) and Manojkumar Raut (29). Along with them, their houses were searched and police seized 11 mobile phones, 47 different bank passbooks, 23 different cheque books, 104 different ATM cards, 10 mobile SIM cards, etc, which they used for their cyber crime operations.

Police are suspecting that the list of victims duped by the arrested accused are much higher than they are estimating. "These five are just the tip of the iceberg, we are sure there are many more involved. Meanwhile, the investigation to find out similar victims is in the pipeline. It has to be more than hundreds - reported and unreported," said a police official.