28000 CASES OF CYBER CRIME TRACED ACROSS THE COUNTRY 

Face2News/Chandigarh 

After the coordinated raids on cyber thugs in Nuh district, pan-India cyber frauds to the tune of Rs 100 crore linked to these criminals have been unearthed. These thugs used to cheat people across the country with fake SIM, Aadhaar Cards etc. and used to deposit money in fake bank accounts to avoid arrest. People from Haryana to the national capital, Delhi and UP to Andaman-Nicobar have been targeted by these fraudsters. With their arrest, about 28,000 cases of cyber fraud have been traced across the country.

This was revealed by Superintendent of Police, Nuh Sh. Varun Singla while addressing a press conference in Nuh onWednesday. He informed that on the intervening night of April 27/28, 102 teams of 5000 policemen had raided 14 villages of the district simultaneously. During this raid, around 125 suspected hackers were detained.

Out of these, 66 accused were identified and arrested. All were produced in the respective Courts and taken on remand for 7 to 11 days. Following the arrest, in order to unearth the whole nexus, Director General of Police, Haryana Sh. P.K. Agrawal deployed a team of 40 Cyber Experts from all across Haryana to be closely associated with the interrogation of these Cybercriminals. Sustained Interrogation of the Cybercriminals apprehended was thus carried out with the help of the Cyber experts and intricate details as regard the Modus operandi being adopted by the Cyber frauds as well as detailed information about sources of fake SIMs and Bank accounts were obtained. The mobile phones and SIM cards seized during the raid were also technically examined and relevant details were also sought from TSPs/ISPs, Banks, NPCI, UPI Intermediaries, UIDAI, DoT, Social Media platforms Facebook, WhatsApp, OLX etc.

The investigation also revealed information about 219 accounts of private and public sector banks and 140 UPI accounts which were being used for committing cyber frauds. These Bank Accounts were mainly found to be activated Online and that too by defrauding gullible people on the pretext of providing a job and then taking their credentials such as Aadhar Card, PAN Card, mobile number and getting an online KYC done. Apart from this, 347 SIM cards activated from Haryana, West Bengal, Assam, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, North East, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka circles of telecom companies have also been unearthed which were being used by these thugs for cybercrime. During the investigation, the source of fake SIMs and bank accounts has been found to be mainly linked to district Bharatpur, Rajasthan.

At the same time, the assistance of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Center of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs was also requested to provide the linkages of fake bank accounts, SIMs, mobile phones etc. used by these cyber miscreants with the cybercrime complaints received nationwide. During this analysis, it has come out that the cyber thugs have so far defrauded around 28000 gullible people, to the tune of more than Rs 100 crore, from 35 states and union territories across the country. Already 1346 FIRs have been registered against these cyber fraudsters across the country. The details of these cyber criminals is being sent to concerned senior Police authorities of these States to fix the culpability of these Cybercriminals.

The investigation also revealed information about 219 accounts of private and public sector banks and 140 UPI accounts which were being used for committing cyber frauds. These Bank Accounts were mainly found to be activated Online and that too by defrauding gullible people on the pretext of providing a job and then taking their credentials such as Aadhar Card, PAN Card, mobile number and getting an online KYC done. Apart from this, 347 SIM cards activated from Haryana, West Bengal, Assam, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, North East, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka circles of telecom companies have also been unearthed which were being used by these thugs for cybercrime. During the investigation, the source of fake SIMs and bank accounts has been found to be mainly linked to district Bharatpur, Rajasthan.

He said that in 16 cases registered in Nuh district, 250 wanted cyber criminals working as co-accused to the Cybercriminals apprehended have also been identified, out of which 20 are from Rajasthan, 19 from Uttar Pradesh and 211 from Haryana. The Cybercriminals, who are in the age bracket of 18-35 Years, have disclosed that they normally used to work in a group of 3-4 persons. They have also revealed that fake Bank accounts, fake SIM Cards, Mobile phones, cash withdrawal/disbural and technical services such as Posting an advertisement on social media websites were provided by only a few handful of individuals in a village after charging their commission fee ranging from 5% to 50% of the fraud amount. The Cybercriminals mainly used Common Service Centres for cash withdrawal while some other used ATMs installed in different villages for same.

Modus Operandi

Giving details of the modus operandi, Sh. Varun Singla said that these fraudsters used to commit the fraud by luring the victims with attractive offers of sale on products like bikes, cars, mobile phones etc. by posting misleading advertisements on Facebook Bazaar/OLX. The unsuspecting victim then calls the fraudster on the given fake mobile number and the fraudster cheats the victim on the pretext of courier charges, transportation of product etc but the product never gets delivered.

These fraudsters also used to post an advertisement on social media platforms offering work from home mainly related to Packaging of Natraj Pencils, promising an earning of Rs 30,000 per month and cheat gullible people on the pretext of registration fee, Packing materials, Courier fee etc.

Similarly, cyber fraudsters used to check random number series in UPI apps to get the names of victims registered against those numbers on those Apps. The fraudster then impersonates as some friend/relative of those unsuspecting victims and request them to receive payment of their behalf on one or the other pretext. They then used to commit fraud by sending fake payment messages and gets the real money transferred to their accounts before the victim found something amiss. Similarly, on the pretext of buying old coins, gullible people were duped of huge sums of money.

The Cybercriminals were also duping victims through sextortion crime by creating attractive profiles on social media platforms and luring the victims to come on a video chat where they carry out screen recording of the victims in compromising position and then extort huge sums of money from them.

The SP said that sensing the seriousness of cybercrime, 102 police teams were constituted by the Director General of Police, Haryana Sh. P.K. Agrawal which conducted coordinated and simultaneous raids at 320 targeted locations with a 5000 strong force. During the raids, 166 fake Aadhar cards, 5 PAN cards, 128 ATM cards, 66 mobile phones, 99 SIMs, 5 POS machines, 3 laptops etc. were recovered.

The police is working on the multiple leads provided by the Cybercriminals arrested in this operation and further raids are being carried out to nab the criminals spread over multiple states, who have since absconded from their villages.