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2 Bihar men conned Uttarakhand man into paying ₹23 lakh online, arrested: Cop
SSP (STF) Naveet Singh Bhullar said the two suspects have been identified as Ram Kumar (22) of Nawada district and Shubham Kumar (22) of Nalanda district in Bihar
DEHRADUN: Two men in their early twenties have been arrested from Delhi on charges that they conned a Rudrapur resident into giving them ₹23 lakh to become a distributor for a soft drink company, the Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF) said on Wednesday.
Senior superintendent of police (STF) Navneet Singh Bhullar said the two suspects have been identified as Ram Kumar (22) of Nawada district and Shubham Kumar (22) of Nalanda district in Bihar.
Bhullar said the victim approached the Cyber Crime Police Station in Rudrapur in November, reporting that he had come into contact with individuals while searching online for opportunities to secure a local distributorship for the Campa Cola brand.
“The impostors allegedly demanded money in the name of registration, security deposit and stock, and transferred ₹23,55,451 from the victim’s bank account to multiple beneficiary accounts”, he said.
The senior police officer said the cyber team collected and analysed data from the banks, phone companies and WhatsApp accounts used in the fraud. The probe revealed that the funds were first transferred to three beneficiary accounts, then routed through several other accounts, before being withdrawn in cash from ATMs or transferred via UPI.
Investigators also obtained CCTV footage showing the accused withdrawing cash from a Bank of Baroda ATM.
“On the basis of technical and manual verification of bank accounts and mobile numbers, the STF team tracked the suspects and arrested them in Delhi”, he said.
They were arrested from Delhi’s Vijay Vihar under the jurisdiction of the Rohini police station.
During searches, investigators seized eight mobile phones with multiple SIM cards, 27 bank passbooks, 18 cheque books, 30 ATM cards of various banks, and five Aadhaar and PAN cards from the accused.
Bhullar said they persuaded people from Bihar to come to Delhi on the pretext of giving them jobs and opened bank accounts in their names. The accused retained their ATM cards and mobile numbers and used them to withdraw proceeds of crime from banks via ATM withdrawals, UPI, and online banking channels.
