Cyber fraud: EOW nabs three more persons including two from Rajasthan

Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing, Bhubaneswar  with the help of their counterparts in Rajasthan  arrested three persons today for their alleged involvement in cyber fraud. While two of them identified as Mahmud Khan and Munfed Khan were nabbed from Ramgarh police limits in Alwar, police held the other accused, Anil Khiller, a local, from Baisinga in Mayurbhanj. This takes the total number of arrests to eight. Earlier five youths had been nabbed in the case.

Official sources said both Mahmud and Munfed were produced before ACJM, Ramgarh, Alwar, Rajsthan and brought on five days transit remand to Bhubaneswar for their production before SDJM, Bhubaneswar. The group, as revealed so far, has opened near about 2000 mule accounts in different part of country mainly in Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar and Assam.

Besides, Khiller used to supply the SIM to the scamsters in Rajasthan. He has procured and sent at least 1200 SIMs to these scamsters, according to official sources. Initial investigation suggests that Mahmud Khan
received at least Rs.62 Lakh remitted through the mule accounts fraudulently opened with
IPPB, Nabarangpur. Apart from this (IPPB account) angle, the fraudsters were illegally procuring SIMs from different sources/ states to be used in this scam.

As per reports, the arrests were made basing on a case registered on the allegation that mule accounts were opened with Indian Post Payment Bank (IPPB) in the name of different innocent/rustic persons, especially in
Nabarangpur by giving the impression that the account holders would get monetary benefits
under different government schemes through these accounts. But these accounts were reportedly used for illegal
money transactions (in various Cyber Crimes) beyond the knowledge of the actual account
holders.

Earlier five locals namely Subir Benya, Upendra Samarth, Rajendra Harijan, Dhansingh Harijan and Sansai Santa (Gramin Dak Sevak) of Nabarangpur were arrested as investigation had revealed that they were in criminal conspiracy with some scamsters of Rajasthan and hadcreated hundreds of mule accounts with Indian Post Payment Bank (IPPB) by using the Aadhaar, PAN, photographs of the innocent villagers. But these accounts were being latched with different SIM numbers so provided by the fraudsters operating from Rajasthan. As a result, any transaction carried out through these accounts was being intimated to the fraudsters, who were managing the phones with given SIM numbers.
During interrogation, they had disclosed that they were opening the mule accounts in the locality for the fraudsters ofRajasthan who were paying them Rs.2,000/- per account. Basing on the clue from the arrested persons and by analysing different incriminating telephone numbers and bank account statements, EOW arrested Mahmud and Munfed.

It has also come to  the fore that around 10-15 groups manage the fake SIM business in Alwar. They procure fake SIMs at Rs 300 each from Odisha and West Bengal and use those for various crimes like job fraud, phising, nude videos, lottery fraud, electricity fraud, etc by linking Facebook Page with  their WhatsApp and befriending people from various areas.  It is suspected that more than 1000 persons operate from Alwar and Bharatpur districts of
Rajsthan and tri-junction area of Rajasthan, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh (mainly
Mewat region, Bhiwandi, Tijara, Kishangadh, Ramgadh, Laxmangadh, Nagar, Govindgadh, EOW sources said.
Investigation of the case is continuing