The Punjab Police has busted an online job fraud racket with the arrest of four cyber criminals from different districts of Assam, Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab Gaurav Yadav said here on Thursday.
The gang lured people into its trap by offering lucrative "work from home" jobs through Telegram app, said the DGP in a statement here. To gain trust, the fraudsters would initially give small tasks to the victim, and in return, would pay them a small amount of money.
"Later, the victim would be asked to deposit money on different pretexts in the lure of a bigger return," said the DGP. He said with these arrests the Punjab Police has dug up another trail, leading to a deep-rooted cyber fraud nexus spread across the country.
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Those arrested have been identified as Jahirul Islam, Rafiul Islam, Mehabub Alam, and Azizur Rehman.
Police have also recovered two swipe machines, two biometric scanners, one eye scanner, one fingerprint scanner, 38 pan cards, 32 debit and credit cards, 16 SIM cards, 10 voter cards, nine Aadhaar cards, 10 bank account pass books/cheque books, five government stamps, five mobile phones, one laptop, two pen drives and one ID card from their possession.
ADGP (Cyber Crime) V Neeraja said following a complaint from a woman, who was duped of Rs 25 lakh by the fraudsters, a cyber crime team conducted investigation into the case and found that the gang was running its operation from Assam.
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Jahirul Islam and Rafiul Islam, who were arrested from Nagaon district of Assam, revealed that they ran a customer services point for providing online services, and to make a quick buck, used the public's documents to forge PAN Cards, voter cards, and Aadhaar cards using a software.
They would use the documents to open bank accounts and obtain SIM cards on the directions of Mehabub Alam. Mehabub Alam, who was later arrested from Guwahati, revealed that he provided bank accounts to Azizur Rehman on a commission basis.
Azizur Rehman was arrested from Morigaon district of Assam. Investigations have revealed that till now 160 people from 23 states were defrauded by the gang. Many more victims are likely to come up, police said.
Preliminary investigation has suggested that the kingpins, who are operating this fraud racket from overseas, were receiving money in cryptocurrency, said police.
