Web of deceit: How this gang used e-commerce sites to dupe scores

NEW DELHI: Ten people have been arrested from different parts of Haryana and Rajasthan for allegedly duping people from Delhi-NCR after contacting them through e-commerce websites.
The cyber cell of Delhi Police carried out the operation as part of a crackdown to curb online crimes originating from the Nuh, Bharatpur and Mathura tri-junction region, using popular e-commerce platforms engaged in sale-resale of goods.
According to around 300 complaints received on the national cybercrime portal, the accused posed as army/paramilitary personnel to gain trust of victims. The SIM cards used in the racket were sourced from as far as Barpeta in Assam and Telangana.
“The complaints had various commonalities such as fraudsters impersonating army/paramilitary personnel, fake e-wallet transaction screenshots and use of malicious QR codes,” said DCP (cyber) Anyesh Roy. “The complaints also revealed that the fraudsters were using same names. This indicated the involvement of a huge gang of cyber criminals targeting unsuspecting people across the country.”
The phone numbers were tracked and raids were conducted in various states, leading to the arrest of 10 men — Husban, Hasib, Shehzad, Salim, Aziz, Sakir, Faizal, Yashvir, Sajid and Sabir — mostly from Nuh, Faridabad and Bharatpur. All of them are in their mid-20s.
The accused primarily used two ways to dupe people. In one, the accused posed as army/paramilitary personnel posting advertisements on popular e-commerce websites for sale of their goods, mostly cars or bikes. They even posted photographs of vehicles, mainly taken from internet, which had either Indian Army or a paramilitary force name written on them.
After the deal is struck, they told the victim that the vehicle couldn’t be released or sent to him unless a releasing charge was paid as per the army/paramilitary rules. Once the amount was paid, they coaxed the victim to pay more on the pretext of transport and handling charges, GST etc. They would then suddenly cut all contacts with him. The gang used bank or e-wallet accounts for transactions.
In the second mode, the accused pretended to be buyers. Here too, they impersonated army/paramilitary personnel and used to send a fake screenshot generated with the help of a spoofing app after agreeing to pay the advertised price for an item. When the victim complained about not receiving the money, they would ask him to scan a malicious QR code to bypass a technical glitch.
Once the victim scanned it on his mobile phone, the money, instead of getting credited, got debited from his account. After a complaint, they used to send another QR code promising twice the amount for the “erroneous” transfer, but that amount would also get deducted from the victim’s account.
This way, the gang managed to fraudulently make the victim scan malicious QR codes as many times as possible and then suddenly stopped responding to his calls.