Bengaluru: South CEN police arrest three persons running courier scam from Dubai

Published - September 23, 2024 08:28 pm IST - Bengaluru

The South Division cybercrime police managed to crack a courier scam and arrest a gang of three, including one from Dubai, who were trapping gullible people posing as CBI and Mumbai police, threatening them with false drug cases and extorting money in the garb of digital arrest.

The accused have been identified Mukarram, kingpin of the racket, and his associates Mansoor and Ibrahim.

According to the police, two of the accused are locals and worked as auto drivers. Mukarram, who works at a manpower consultancy firm in Dubai, also ganged up with a gang from Cambodia to trap and extort people in and around Bengaluru.

The racket was unearthed when the Subrmanyapura police, while investigating a similar case reported on July 2, stumbled upon the local bank account where the looted money had landed. Following the lead, the police tracked down Mansoor and Ibrahim.

The accused, posing as police officials, threatened the victim accusing him of sending a parcel containing illegal items, including 140 gm of MDMA (narcotics), three credit cards, five passports, and four kg of clothes. The accused forced him to stay in a rented accommodation for 10 days, after which the victim was asked to move to a hotel as he was under “house arrest.” The scamsters conned him of ₹30 lakh after holding him under duress and conducting “interrogations” on Skype by people who claimed to be CBI officers.

A major lead for the police was the money trail. As the victim transferred the money to only two accounts, immediately after receiving the bank statements, they found out that ₹26 lakh was transferred online to a bank account in Mansoor’s name. On September 10, officials arrested Mansoor and Ibrahim from a bus stand in Govindapura’s Kavalbyrasandra.

During interrogation, Mansoor allegedly confessed to the police about the ₹26 lakh in his account and told them that he had transferred ₹4 lakh to another person and ₹ 11 lakh was remaining, which were frozen by the police on July 3. The police recovered ₹ 75,000 from Ibrahim along with two mobile phones and one ATM card. On September 11, the two were sent to police custody for seven days.

Upon further interrogation of Ibrahim and Mansoor, they revealed that they were recruited by Mukarram and that there were others in Bengaluru, Mumbai, and abroad who were part of the racket. The police said that a majority of the accused were operating from Cambodia posing as officials and called the victims on Skype and WhatsApp.

On September 12, the police arrested Mukarram from his house in Thanisandra as soon as he landed from Dubai. The police investigations revealed that Mukarram travelled to Dubai a few years ago for work and there he allegedly met some Chinese nationals, who hired him into their network and introduced him to the scam.

“They used Mukarram to understand about the Karnataka police, their attire and how they operate and demanded that he bring them some uniforms. He had contacted a dealer in Bengaluru who supplies uniforms officially to the department. However, he refused to comply with Mukarram’s request without an official letter from the department,” a senior officer said.

The police also found that ₹10.25 lakh was sent from Bengaluru to Dubai through the hawala route. “In this case, the proceeds of the crime were not converted to crypto. Otherwise, it would’ve been difficult to trace it,” the officer said.

All three are currently in judicial custody.

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