The cybercrime police have uncovered a phishing scam and arrested four engineering dropouts for allegedly preying on unsuspecting clients using fake investment offers.
Through multiple websites, the four men — all in their 20s — would lure people with investment offers and get them to part with their bank account details and other sensitive information.
The police, who have found details and credentials of more than 16,000 bank accounts in the seized database, believe the scam has cost people lakhs of rupees. “We are still trying to determine the extent of their network. We have found 600 domain names of various websites in their names,” a police officer said.
Over the past few days, the police arrested Kapil Dev Suman and Sooraj Kumar in Bengaluru while special teams tracked their associates Sushil Kumar Suman (Kapil’s brother) and Abila alias Bipl to Bokaro in Jharkhand. In total, the police have recovered 460 SIM cards, 15 mobile phones, laptops, hard disks, memory cards, data cards, and forged as well as original ID proof such as marks cards, PAN cards and voter IDs.
The accused would use one of the domain names to set up a fake investment firm and offer gullible citizens schemes giving them an interest of 2% a day. Those visiting the websites were directed to enter their banking credentials, which the men would use to siphon away small amounts of money so as not to raise suspicion.
“They used the money to fund their luxurious lifestyle, which included holidaying in star hotels and buying electronic goods,” a police source said.
The complaint
Investigation into the scam began last week after Suresh Sakri, a resident of Bengaluru, complained that ₹5,000 and later ₹2,000 were debited from his account in two fraudulent transactions. He received an SMS to this effect and, on enquiring with the bank, was informed that the transactions were valid.
The money had been wired to e-wallets, from where it went into an account in a bank in J.P. Nagar.
The bank account was in the name of an Ajay Singh, who the police found out did not exist. The gang had used fake documents to open the account, the police said.
The police got their first break when one of the accused, Dev Suman, approached the bank in person to withdraw money. They discovered that the photograph on the account opening form was his, even though he had given an alias. He was interrogated and led the police to Sooraj Kumar, who was arrested immediately.
The role of two others was also established and Bokaro was identified as the gang’s second base for operations. Three teams were formed to conduct the investigation. A technical team analysed phone records, websites and email IDs, while the banking team probed the bank account and transaction details. Soon enough, a police team arrested the remaining accused.