Gang of cyber criminals busted in Azamgarh, 5 held

Varanasi: Azamgarh police busted a gang of cyber criminals engaged in withdrawing money from the accounts of others by changing or cloning their ATM cards, with the arrest of five members including their kingpin, on Wednesday
SP Azamgarh Triveni Singh said that with these arrests and disclosure of the names of their other accomplices, a 24-member inter-range gang of cyber criminals has been registered. History sheet of each of 24 members of this gang is being opened while process to confiscate their properties will also be initiated.
Singh said that in following the complaints of withdrawal of money from many accounts, a team led by ASP crime Sudhir Jaiswal had been assigned the task of busting the gang. Following a tip-off regarding presence of some criminals near Surahan crossing under Didarganj police station in the morning, the team cordoned the area and started searching for them.
On noticing men in khaki five persons standing there tried to escape but the alert policemen foiled their bid and arrested all of them. The arrested miscreants were were identified as Navin Gautam, Shivam, Pravesh, Sikandar Rajbhar and Avinash. Police have also recovered 12 ATM cards and a country-made revolver from their possession. During initial investigation of the police it came to light that 14 criminal cases were lodged against Navin, who is the gang leader and had already gone to jails 14 times in past. Six cases were lodged against Shivam and three against Pravesh.
Singh said that the arrested cyber criminals divulged the names of 19 other members of their gang which operates in Azamgarh, Jaunpur and adjoining districts. They also revealed that members of this gang stay near the ATMs and in the name of helping bank customer facing difficulty in withdrawing money, they change or clone their debit cards. Later, money is withdrawn from the account of such customers and distributed among the gang members.
Following the identification of all 24 members of this gang, SP Azamgarh said, the process of registering an inter-range cyber criminals gang has been initiated.