LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force on Tuesday arrested a repeat offender who was running a fake website, offering a bouquet of public and private services and claiming to be operating under ‘Digital India’ Programme of the Central government.
Identified as
Sudhanshu Shukla, a native of
Pratapgarh, he was arrested from
Gomtinagar in the city. He was earlier arrested by Delhi Police for claiming himself to be a CBI official. Shukla duped over thousands of people through his website and made around Rs 11 crore, says STF sleuths.
The STF began working on this case on complaint of the Union ministry for electronics and information technology ministry, which had received numerous complaints from the
PMO regarding the website.
STF SSP Abhishek Singh said that during investigation it came to light that www.egramdigital.co.in was not a government-owned and hosted by a web server located in Switzerland without any Indian contact details. The website was also using photos and videos of Prime Minster
Narendra Modi and had links of many government websites. The ‘Digital India’ logo was also prominently placed on the website, giving an impression that it was government website.
The website offered multiple services like money transfer, Aadhaar-enabled payment system, PAN, health insurance, mobile/DTH recharge, bus/rain tickets and movie/hotel bookings. The company on its website claimed itself to be working in support of Prime Minister’s
Digital India scheme, said Singh.
He further added that within few months, Shukla created a network of 1,600 franchisees collecting Rs 3,000 to Rs 7,000 from each of them in name of licence fee for application. His account showed about transactions worth Rs 11 crore with thousands of innocent people falling into his net.
Shukla has created a network of 1600 franchisees, collecting Rs 3,000 to Rs 7,000 from each of them in name of... Read More
