HYDERABAD:
Detectives of the Special Operations Team
,
L B Nagar
, on Monday arrested eight persons for cheating people by pretending to be
digital marketing experts
and taking money from them. The exact amount looted has not been ascertained.
The group of eight, caught under the
Rachakonda commissionerate jurisdiction
, were identified as M Sandeep (26), Bomma Murali Krishna (28), Kacham Ravikanth (32), B Manoj Kumar (24), A Surendar Reddy (26), J Srinivas (33), M Venu Madahav (38) and K Srisailam (28).
As a part of their plan, the gang would impersonate digital marketing executives and use pre-activated SIM cards obtained by furnishing forged ID proofs to cheat people. They would ask people to invest in a bogus company. “They would also go to several genuine companies and claim they have a
database of investors
who are willing to invest. This way, they would first cheat unsuspecting people and then a take 10% commission from companies,“ said a se nior SOT official.
“They used to make calls using multiple SIM cards to hoodwink people. Many people were fooled and they bought the fraudsters' stories,“ said the officer. “There are a number of ways people use digital marketing to interact with unsuspecting people. The gang used to receive both positive and negative feedback from their customers and use it,“ said the official. The police recovered eight laptops, 89 cellphones, 4,950 SIM cards and ` 50,000 cash from the possession of the gang members.