Jagran Correspondent, Greater Noida | Central Noida police arrested 10 cyber fraudsters who were using the internet to scam people in the name of the Kerala lottery. The accused used to deceive people by running advertisements on Facebook and Instagram. Police recovered 20 mobile phones, 4 debit cards, and Rs 10,200 in cash from their possession.
Police Raid Noida Flat
Police raided flat number 302, Sector-121, Sai Property Apartments, and arrested all the accused at 1.27 am on June 18. The arrested accused include Allen Antony, Ankit Kumar, Rahul, Shakeel, Rajshekhar, Guru Prasad, Vinay DP, Vinod Kumar, Santosh, and Chetan. All of them are originally from Karnataka and Bihar and were operating a fraud network from Noida.
How Syndicate Used To Work
During interrogation, the accused revealed that they ran lottery advertisements on social media. If people contacted them, they would charge 50 rupees and send fake tickets via QR code.
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They would then call in the evening and claim they had won a lottery of Rs 12 lakh. Pretending to pay, they would extort money under the guise of TDS, GST, NOC, Income Tax Clearance, and Reserve Bank Clearance.
The accused targeted people in South India and spoke in their native language to avoid suspicion. To gain trust, they would send fake RBI and Income Tax Department documents via WhatsApp. After the fraud, they would break the SIM card and use a new number. They would pay a 75 per cent commission to the fake bank account and SIM card supplier.
In the past two months, 18 complaints were received on the cyber portal from Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Investigation revealed that all the calls were originating from Noida. When Cyber Cell Sector-108 investigated, transactions worth lakhs were found in fake accounts.
(With Jagran.com inputs)