Chandigarh, January 30: Punjab Police Cyber Crime Cell achieved big success in busting a hi-tech multi-crore bank fraud racket operating across the state. The fraudster siphoned off the account money in 5 Bank accounts opened on fake identities and later on withdrew the cash through ATMs and self cheques.
Disclosing this here today, a spokesperson of Bureau of Investigation said that Vijay Kumar, Location Manager Investigation, Risk Intelligence and Control Unit, HDFC Bank submitted an application on 30/12/2019 alleging a fraud of around Rs. 2 crore from a bank account of the HDFC Bank in a tech savvy manner.
He further said the modus operandi was that the fraudsters very shrewdly changed the Email IDs and Mobile Numbers registered with the bank account of the victim to identical mobile numbers and email Id thereby updating their own mobile number and e-mail id in the targeted account hence becoming the virtual controllers of that account.
During the course of investigation, it was found that all the Government ID Proofs including Chip based Driving Licenses, PAN Cards, Hologram containing Voter ID Cards, etc. provided as KYC documents for opening the Bank accounts and for obtaining Mobile Numbers were found to be fake and fabricated.
He revealed that all the money withdrawals were done by the fraudsters through ATM cards and cheques thereby leaving no trail for the Police to follow. Moreover, the Mobile used were made functional only during the operation and remained non-accessible thereafter.
During the course of investigation, it was found that the racket was operating from Ludhiana and consisted of at least 3 persons. One of the gang members was identified as Rajeev Kumar S/o Dev Raj R/o New Shimlapauri, Ludhiana.
He informed that on the basis of the physical verification and emerging details, 3 accused were nominated in this Case and out of them, two accused namely Rajeev Kumar S/o Dev Raj and Deepak Kumar Gupta S/o Darshan Lal Gupta of Shimlapuri were arrested on 28-01-2020 from Shimlapuri, Ludhiana, however one accused managed to escape.
He further added that from the arrested accused, Rs. 10,00,000/- which was deposited in their own accounts have been recovered and more recoveries will be affected soon. With the arrest of these accused, 4 more cases of fraud involving fraudulent transfer of crores of Rupees stand solved. The accused in a similar fashion had duped one Ram Kala R/o Naharpur, Haryana of 80 Lac rupees regarding which one Case FIR NO. 169 of 2019 was registered at PS Manesar, Haryana and with their arrest, this Case also stands solved.
He stated that more cases would stand to get resolved during further investigation process. Both the above said arrested accused were produced in the Court of Judicial Magistrate, SAS Nagar who remanded both the accused to Police custody for 5 days. Their interrogation will lead to further recoveries and arrests of the remaining Gang members.
On receipt of the complaint, preliminary enquiry was conducted in the complaint, based on which, a Case FIR NO. 04 dated 08/01/2020 U/s 66, 66C, 66D IT Act, 420, 465, 468, 471, 120-B IPC was registered in PS State Cyber Crime, Punjab.
