THANE: The Thane railway protection force has arrested four people, including a railway employee in a one of its kind major online fake railway ticket scam, possibly leaving thousands of gullible commuters fleeced post lockdown, wherein the accused used to allegedly issue fake e-tickets using genuine passenger name records (PNR).
According to KK Ashraf, senior DSC, Mumbai railway protection force, the con apparently was never attempted before here on such a scale.
The prime accused V A Shaikh registered a fake travel agency with a yellow page service in Mumbai and used to contact clients and take half of the money including their commission of Rs 500-1000 per person by promising them assured tickets. The accused would note details of the commuters and contact his aide, a railway official, who used to scout for PNRs matching the date and volume of passengers on the route.
The accused would then pass the PNR to another accomplice in Latur who would generate a fake e-ticket using computer software and an image of the e-ticket would be sent to the passenger via Whatsapp. The commission would depend on the urgency and desperation of the commuters, said the police.
“There was very little scope for doubt for the passenger as when they used to check the status of the ticket online, it would show the same number of travellers and the status confirmed following which they used to pay the entire sum. However, the victims would be unaware that the PNR has been forged and booking status was that of bonafide passengers. The unsuspecting victims would realise the con only after they turned up at the station and not find their names on the charts,” said an official from the Thane RPF.
The scamsters would by then have blocked the numbers of their victims leaving the hapless commuters with no option but to look for other modes of transport. Often, the cases would go unregistered as the commuters were either in a hurry to leave or wary of being exposed to police questioning.
The police were eventually alerted of the scam after a passenger complained to them in August about the same and in due course of time, few other victims also turned up to report the matter. Ashraf then directed the team at Thane to conduct investigations and based on the numbers provided by the victims, the cops first studied the money transactions and kept watch on the bank accounts.
“Once confirmed of the role of all the accused, we started making arrests and taken four people including the kingpin in our custody. There are few more people from other states as well involved in the scam and we will track them soon. We suspect the volume of victims would be in thousands as we have till now recovered tickets worth Rs 18 lakhs,” said Ashraf.