HYDERABAD: The cyber crime wing of Cyberabad commissionerate have arrested two members of a Kolkata based online dating racket.
On Saturday, the police raided three call centres in
Siliguri and Kolkata and arrested two persons--Sandeep Mitra of Kolkata and
Neeta Shankar of Siliguri. Three of their associates, including the prime accused Debashish Mukherjee of
Howrah, Faijul Haq of Kolkata and Anita Dey of Howrah, are absconding.
To dupe victims scouring the Internet for female company, the accused had floated multiple dating websites and set up 20 call centres(eight in Kolkata and 12 in Siliguri) to honey trap them.
On July 20, 2018, the
cybercrime police received a complaint from a city-based software professional that fraudsters duped him of Rs 15.19 lakh by luring him to join an online dating/escort service website. The victim told the police that he came across an escort service website, www.getyourlady.com, in May 2018. After he registered on the website, he received a phone call on May 25 from one Riya, asking him to pay a membership fee of Rs 1,080.
She later convinced the victim to pay Rs 15,600 as club licence fee, Rs 27,600 towards registration fee, Rs 37,700 towards licence fee, Rs 5,00,000 towards service charges in instalments, Rs 87,634 towards GST, Rs 4,50,000 towards back ground verification charges and Rs 4,00,000 towards final payment chargers. The victim made all the payments through online bank transfers. As Riya continued to ask for more money instead of providing him any ‘services’, the victim confronted her. The accused, then, stopped communicating with the victim and approached the police. The police tracked the phone conversation details and bank transaction particulars to zero in on the two accused.The police seized a laptop, 50 cell phones, two finger print attendance machines and other incriminating evidence from the accused. The duo was brought to Hyderabad on a transit warrant on Tuesday and produced before the court.
Ayurveda, a cover for dating racket
The modus operandi of Debashish Mukherjee, the prime accused in the racket, was floating multiple dating/escort service websites to lure people. He used to recruit women employees by placing advertisements in newspapers seeking telecallers for an Ayurveda company, which was a front. After the recruitment, Debashish explained them their roles. To make them stay in the job, he offers them a handsome commission based on their ability to hoodwink men and to part
