The Cyber crime police have busted a major phishing racket and arrested a gang of four engineering drop-outs for running a online scam. The four would lure bank customers with investment offers and withdraw money form their accounts using the details furnished.
The accused have been identified Kapil Dev Suman, his brother Sushil Kumar Suman, Sooraj Kumar and Abila alias Bipla, all natives of Bokaro in Jharkhand. The police also recovered 460 SIM cards, 15 cellphones, laptops, hard disks, memory cards, data cards, and forged and original identity proof from them. The police have found details and credentials of more than 16,000 bank accounts in the seized database. One of the accused had around 600 domain names of various websites in his name.
On their modus operandi, the police said the accused would promise huge profit on investment to lure gullible people through these websites. Those visiting the websites were directed to enter their banking credentials and the same were captured by the accused, which they used to transfer money from the victim’s accounts to theirs. The accused were using the money to fund their luxurious lifestyle.
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Investigation into the scam began after Suresh Sakri, a resident Bengaluru, complained that ₹5,000 and ₹2,000 were debited from his account in two fraudulent transactions. He received an SMS to this effect and on enquiring with the bank, he came to know that some unknown persons have fraudulently debited the amount online. The money was remitted to Idea money e-wallet and SBI Buddy from his account. During investigation, it was found that the money from the e-wallet and the SBI Buddy had gone to an SBM bank account in J.P. Nagar.
The bank account was in the name of Ajay Singh. Police made a major breakthrough when Dev Suman approached the bank to withdraw money. On verifying his details with the bank, the police found that the photograph on the account opening form of Ajay Singh was that of Dev Suman.
He was interrogated and led the police to Sooraj Kumar, who was arrested immediately in Bengaluru.
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The police got details of 28 bank accounts, one laptop, two mobile phones and four forged PAN Cards from them. The role of two others was also established and Bokaro City was identified as the base for operations apart from Bengaluru. Three teams were formed to conduct the investigation. A technical team analysed the phone records, websites, e-Mail IDs, while banking team probed the bank accounts and transaction details; and, physical team arrested the accused, said the police.
An investigation team was sent to Jharkhand to arrest Sushil Kumar Suman and Bipla.
The police suspect that the accused could have cheated more people and have requested the victims to contact Cyber Crime Police Station, CID, Bengaluru on 080-22094507 / 9480800197. Further, they may contact CID on e-mail id: ccps.kar@gmail.com