NEW DELHI: Over 500 Delhiites have lost crores of rupees to cyber crooks posing as executives of power distribution company BSES. They took control of the people’s mobile devices through remote access and installed malicious software, using which they were able to access OTPs to be used to transfer money from bank accounts to their rented accounts. Delhi Police’s Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Ops (IFSO) unit undertook an intensive operation and conducted simultaneous raids in 22 cities to bust the racket and arrest 65 individuals. According to KPS Malhotra, DCP (Special Cell), over 100 bank accounts holding the siphoned funds have been frozen. “More than 200 complaints on the cybercrime reporting portal have been linked to this case. Overall, over 1,000 victims across the country were targeted by the gang,” Malhotra disclosed on Thursday. Police have seized 45 mobile phones, 60 debit and credit cards, nine cheque books, seven passbooks and 25 pre-activated SIM cards. Among those arrested are logistic providers (SIM card and account providers), tele-callers, account holders, SIM card sellers and e-mitras, who help citizens to access business-to-consumer services. The cops started their investigation after noticing a rise in such complaints on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal. More than 200 complaints were in regard with BSES. The investigators discovered that the fraudsters were sending random messages to citizens saying their electricity bill hadn’t been updated in the system and their connection would be cut off by the evening. Assuming the message to be genuine, the alarmed customers called the number mentioned in the message. During the call, the fraudster posed as the electricity officer of BSES. “The fraudsters then either took down the bank account details or got remote access software installed in the caller’s phone. Once the details were shared, the conmen transferred money from the victims’ accounts to their own fake/fraudulently acquired accounts,” DCP Malhotra said. After the registration of an FIR, a team comprising ACP Raman Lamba, Vijay Gehlawat, inspector Neeraj Choudhary and others was formed. During technical analysis of the con, the police team found that the insidious network was spread across India. On carrying out the behaviour analysis of the mobile devices, they noticed that if the mobile phones of a module were switched off, all people involved went off the radar or shifted to other hideouts. “The gang had procured credit cards using fake documents and used them for paying the bills of the general public. Credit card spendings were also paid from the cheating proceedings,” said a police officer. To bust the scam, different teams were constituted to carry out simultaneous raids at 22 locations including Jamtara in Jharkhand, Jaipur, Indore, Ludhiana, Deogarh, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Gandhi Nagar, Surat, Mumbai and several places in Bihar. The cops arrested 65 people. This pan-India operation had an immediate repercussion on the scam and the number of complaints related to BSES has reduced significantly after August 26 when the first arrests were made, police said.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/power-play-1k-a/cs-cleaned-up/articleshow/94084033.cms
