Police officials with the cyber crime division of the CID arrested four persons from Rajasthan for allegedly creating fake social media accounts of police officers and government servants in a scam to extract money from their contacts. A police team tracked down the accused to Bharatpur and arrested Ansar, Balwinder Singh, Saini and Saddam. “We are on the lookout for a fifth person, Shakeel, who allegedly created the fake profiles,” said a senior police officer.
The accused would get details of their targets’ friends list on Facebook, then make a fake profile using an official photo and send requests for financial help to their contacts via the site’s messaging app. Recently, the cyber crime division received as many as four complaints, three from senior police officers.
According to the police, they gang created fake Aadhaar cards by mixing various photographs, addresses and numbers. They used this information to get SIM cards.
Ansar, a retailer of SIM cards, would apply for a SIM with these fake identity papers while Balwinder Singh, who works for a leading telecom service provider, got them activated.
DIG (Economic Offences) Rohini Katoch Sepat, who supervised the investigation, said that similar cases had been registered in other parts of Karnataka. “Over 10 such cases were filed in different police stations across the State,” she said.
In addition to impersonating their targets on Facebook, the investigation revealed that the accused used fake SIM cards to open various social media accounts, advertise on online re-selling platforms, open e-wallets and payment bank accounts to commit various online financial crimes across the country, the officer added.
“The investigation has revealed the misuse of Aadhaar to avail of SIM cards. There is a serious flaw in the verification process of mobile service providers,” said another senior official.
