The accused in police custody.
Accused cheated people on the pretext of linking their Aadhaar cards to mobile numbers
A racket which duped people of over ₹10 crore on the pretext of linking their Aadhaar cards to their mobile numbers has been busted and two persons have been arrested in connection with the case, the police said on Friday.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Dwarka) Anto Alphonse said that the accused have been identified as Alimuddin Ansari (27), the mastermind, who is a resident of Jharkhand and Manoj Yadav (31), a resident of Uttar Pradesh’s Azamgarh.
The police said that they had received a complaint from Rakesh Gilani, a resident of Dwarka Sector 4. The complainant told the police that he had received a call from a customer care executive of a telecom company and was told that his mobile number was not linked with his Aadhaar card and that to get it done he had to provide his card details.
“The complainant was also asked to provide his debit card number and CVV number of the bank accounts which were linked with his mobile number,” an officer said, adding that after he had given the caller all the details, the complainant was told to forward a message he must have received on his mobile number to customer care number, 121. The accused had requested for a new SIM card on the number without the knowledge of the complainant.
The caller further told the victim that his SIM card will get deactivated and will be reactivated in 24 hours. However, after the services did not get reactivated, the victim called the customer care and was told that a new SIM card had been activated on his mobile number. He also found that ₹4,17,646 was transferred from his bank account.
He then approached the police after which a case was registered and an investigation was taken up.
During investigation, the police sought the bank statement of the victim and obtained details of the accounts to which the money was transferred. Details of the PAN and Aadhaar number linked with the beneficiary accounts were obtained, which led the police to some mobile numbers. The call detail records of the numbers were analysed and over 100 short-listed mobile numbers were put on surveillance.
The police were also keeping an eye on the movements of the suspects, the police said. Subsequently, Yadav was held from Delhi and Ansari from Rajasthan.
Over 100 members
During interrogation, the accused said that the racket has more than 100 members spread across Jharkhand and West Bengal working from unorganised call centres. “Yadav’s job was to provide bank accounts to transfer the money that the gang duped people of via online fraud. He would target labour-class people and offered them ₹2,000 per account to lure them to give him their bank account details,” Mr. Alphonse said, adding that the address of these bank accounts were then changed.
The police said that the accused would call a victim posing as customer care executives and get bank details on the pretext of getting their Aadhaar cards linked to their mobile numbers and in the process, get a new SIM card on the victim’s mobile number. The new SIM card gave them access to transactions and one-time passwords, using which they would transfer money from the victim’s account.
The police said that the accused have embezzled more than ₹10 crore. Ansari told the police that the fake accounts were also outsourced to other cheaters at hefty commissions. The police added that 81 debit cards, 104 cheque books were recovered and mobile phones and SIM cards were seized from the accused.