Cyber Crime Police under the City Commissionerate cracked a fake dating website case and arrested 26 persons including 23 women in Kolkata.
Speaking to The Hindu from Kolkata on Saturday, Cyber Crime Inspector Gopinath said that all the 26 accused have been taken into custody and will be brought to Viskhapatnam in a day or two, after the formalities for transit warrants are completed.
Modus operandi
Fake dating websites, most of them based in Kolkata, have gained prominence in recent years. These websites upload fake profiles of young women, and then advertise these profiles in order to lure gullible men into signing up for memberships by paying a large amount of money.
A denizen, working at an MNC in the city, approached the Cyber Crime Police Station a couple of weeks ago after being defrauded by a similar website. The police then launched an investigation, Cyber Crime Sub-Inspector Ravi Kumar said.
“The victim had logged on to one of these fake websites about three months back, and after going through the regular login process, he received a call from a woman who was part of the gang,” Mr. Ravi Kumar said.
“The woman asked the victim to choose from one of the many profiles available on the website. All of the profiles had pictures of attractive women. However, the victim was told that he would be able to meet the women only after becoming a member by paying a ‘refundable deposit’ of ₹4 lakh. The profiles were all fake,” Mr. Ravi Kumar said.
Falling for the ruse, the victim deposited ₹4 lakh. Later, he got a call from a woman who claimed that she was the person who he had selected on the website. She reportedly told the victim that in order to meet her, he would have to deposit another ₹5 lakh, the police said.
The victim told police that over a period of time, he paid a total of ₹18 lakh. In due course, it finally dawned on him that he was taken for a ride.
These fake dating websites have become a countrywide racket and are even running a call centre, police said. All the 23 girls who were arrested were working at this call centre, Mr. Ravi Kumar said.
Cyber Crime Police also seized 48 bank accounts and efforts are on to find out who are the other victims.
Since this was an all-India racket, there must be victims from all across the country and the money swindled could be to the tune of crores of rupees, Mr. Gopinath said.
Tasking probe
Investigating the case and zeroing in on the suspects was a herculean task, the Cyber Crime Police said.
“We made over three trips to Kolkata as the gang shifted their call centre every month. This made things difficult,” said the SI.
