4 held after cops bust cyber fraud racket in Bajali

Guwahati: A team from Bajali district’s Sarupeta police station on Sunday arrested four individuals from Bajali for their alleged involvement in a cyber fraud racket.

According to police, the accused have been identified as Aditya Tiwari and Rahul Kumar, both residents of Bihar, along with Jitumoni Rai of Hakartup village in Bajali and Ranjan Das of Puthimari village in Kamrup.

Police officials said preliminary investigation had revealed that Rahul and Aditya had allegedly procured bank accounts, ATM cards and SIM cards belonging to elderly and financially vulnerable individuals through local contacts and had used them to facilitate cyber fraud operations.

“These bank accounts were allegedly used as mule accounts to receive and hold funds generated through the cyber fraud network. The money was subsequently transferred to multiple Customer Service Points (CSPs) in Bajali for further transactions, with operators or agents receiving a small commission,” a police officer from Sarupeta police station said.

The case came to light on Thursday after several CSP operators discovered that their bank accounts had been frozen by banks following the detection of multiple suspicious transactions.

“During the initial investigation, we obtained the mobile phone numbers used in the fraudulent activities. By tracking those numbers and examining footage from multiple CCTV cameras, we were able to identify the accused and trace their movements,” police said.

During the operation, police recovered several ATM cards, cheque books, and bank passbooks from the possession of the accused.

Police further stated that the investigation has uncovered several leads, including transaction trails and technical evidence linking the racket to other states.

The accused were produced before a court and have been remanded to three days of police custody.