21 held for defrauding 16,000 people of Rs 125 crore in massive cyber fraud bust by Gurgaon police

GURGAON: In a massive cyber fraud that has been busted, 21 scamsters duped over 16,000 people — the amount involved stands at over Rs 125 crore.

The linkage analysis of the SIM cards and cell phones seized from the 21 cybercrime offenders arrested by the Gurgaon police during the last two months revealed they defrauded over 16,788 victims across the country of about Rs 125.6 crore.

"The I4C analysis of 16 mobile phones and seven SIM cards recovered from the accused revealed that they were involved in 16,788 cyber fraud complaints and 672 cybercrime cases registered across the country, causing a loss of Rs 125.6 crore to the victims," cyber crime ACP Priyanshu Diwan said.

Diwan said, "Out of the 672 cases, 40 are registered in Haryana, including 11 in Gurgaon."

Following the complaint of a victim who lost Rs 97 lakh in a stock market investment fraud, Cyber South police, on June 26, registered a case under sections 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC against unknown accused.

On Dec 9, Cyber South police arrested a fraudster, Anish, a resident of Keshav Nagar in Uttarakhand's Bajpur.

On Nov 28, in a stock market investment fraud, Cyber East police arrested one Virendra from Goa Kala village in Rajasthan's Nagaur district for cheating a victim of Rs 11 lakh in Sept.

Multiple arrests were made in five other cases where offenders posed as courier agency and law enforcement officials to dupe the victims by threatening to arrest them.

Cyber East police registered one such case on Oct 10 under sections 204 (personating public servant), 318 (4) (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 319 (cheating by personation) of the BNS on the complaint of a victim who had lost Rs 85 lakh to fraudsters posing as police and courier agency officials.

After a detailed probe, the police team arrested the three accused — Sachin, Anam Kumar and Pankaj Saluja — on Nov 24 and 25 from Gurgaon.

In four more similar cases, Cyber East and Cyber South police also arrested other accused, Prakash Chandra, Rajat, Vikas alias Vicky, Sunil Kumar alias Laxman and Deepak alias Monu from Gurgaon on Dec 8 and 9 for defrauding a victim from the city of Rs 29 lakh.

Sukhwinder Singh Saran of Banskhedi in Udham Singh Nagar of Uttarakhand was arrested on Nov 8 for duping a victim of Rs 21 lakh.

Shashank Munia, Pushpendra Singh, Ankit Vaidya and Kamran Ahmed of Gurgaon were arrested for duping another victim of Rs 16 lakh on Dec 6 and 13.

Dilraj Bairwa and Dheera of Gurgaon were arrested on Dec 4 for cheating a victim of Rs 99,000.

Cyber East police also arrested Deepanshu of Mundka in Delhi on Dec 4 for attempting to extort money from a victim by threatening through WhatsApp calls and Pradeep Kumar of Hanumangarh in Rajasthan was arrested on Nov 26 for sending abusive messages to a woman.

Cyber South cops arrested Ashwini of Nimiya in Farrukhabad district of Uttar Pradesh on Dec 7 for cheating a victim of Rs 18,500 by posing as a transport service provider.

Mukesh Lakhanlal Sahu of Ahmedabad was arrested by Cyber East police recently for duping a victim in July of Rs 7 lakh by offering to update his credit card KYC information.



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