Surat: Jamtara gang that duped 744 in 20 states nabbed

SURAT: Cyber crime sleuths of the city police nabbed a gang of eight persons involved in defrauding 744 persons of over Rs 1.50 crore from 20 states. The accused were running the racket from Jamtara in Jharkhand.
Police arrested Mohammad Siraj Ansari and Mohammad Nazir Ansari from Jamtara. Other accused Mohammad Arif Ansari, Hemant Jageswar, Arvind Jamod, Ajay Makwana, Kaushik Nimavat and his wife Shilpa were caught from the city.
A team led by Y A Gohil, assistant commissioner of police, cyber crime cell, camped in Jamtara for a few weeks to nab the accused. The accused were arrested in four cases registered in the city.
Police recovered 77 active SIM cards from them. Investigation of the numbers on National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCCRP) revealed that the accused had duped 744 people from different states using these cards.
“It is probably the biggest cyber crime racket busted in the state as we found that over 744 people were defrauded by the accused gang using mobile phones. They were given bank accounts to be used by people from the city as well,” said city police commissioner Ajay Tomar.
In all, 106 complaints were registered on NCCRP website against the mobile numbers recovered from the accused. Police freezed Rs 5.22 lakh from the bank accounts being used by the accused.
The accused posted their mobile numbers as call centre numbers of leading courier companies and they were reflected on search pages. When a caller would call these numbers, the person on the other end would send a link to the caller to download an app. The app would then give control of the caller’s mobile phone screen to the accused. Once the mobile phone screen in their control, the accused would transfer money to their bank accounts.
In some cases, the accused would also tell the victims that their names had figured in KBC. And in some cases, the accused would say the victims had won lotteries.