News of unearthing of a syndicate of fraudsters busted by Dwarka District Police came as a welcome relief for the people living in the sub city of Dwarka. The gang was involved in cheating innocent through sim swap.
The development has come about with the arrest of two key members of the syndicate, who, according to the police managed more than 1,100 bank accounts procured by them on fake addresses, to stash crores of rupees embezzled through online fraud.
The duo, including Manoj Kumar Yadav, who provided the bank account to deposite the illgotted money, and the mastermind, Alimuddin Ansari who hails from Jharkhand’s Jamtara, arrested.
They defrauded more than 1000 gullible bank account holders of their hard earned money by swapping sim card.
The police informed that the conmen persuaded their victims to share confidential details on the pretext of linking their Aadhaar cards with their mobile numbers.
As many as 81 debit cards, 104 cheque books and 130 passbooks of different bank accounts used were recovered from the possession of the accused. Eight mobile phones, 31 sim cards, photocopies of many ID proofs, diaries containing details of bank accounts, etc. were also seized from them.
A joint team of police officials of Cyber Cell and PS Dwarka North, Dwarka District led by Inspector Sanjay Kundu, SHO, Dwarka North, under the supervision of Rajender Singh ACP arrested accused Alimuddin Ansari, 27, and Manoj Yadav, 31, who are involved in duping several people. Through SIM swapping, the modus operandi Alimuddin Ansari and his associates employed in the crime was that they would get the SIM card of their victim and then transfer money from his/her bank account to one of the bank accounts procured by Manoj Yadav.
Recounting the sequence of events that led to the breaking of the crime, the police said Rakesh Gilani, a resident of Sector 4, Dwarka filed a complaint at PS Dwarka North that he received call from a man posing as customer care representative of a reputed telecom service. He asked for his Aadhar number details on the pretext that his Aadhar number was to be linked to his mobile number.
He also sought his Debit Card number and CVV number of the bank accounts linked with that telecom service number. After getting all the details, he sent a message to the complainant asking him to forward the message to telecom service customer care number 121.
The caller further told the complainant that after forwarding the message to 121, his SIM would be deactivated only to be activated within 24 hours. But when the SIM card was not activated even after 36 hours, the complainant grew suspicious and called on 121 whereupon the telecom service customer care executive told him that a new SIM card has already been activated on his mobile number. When he checked his bank account, he came to know Rs. 417646 had been transferred from his account. A case was registered at PS Dwarka North on the complaint and investigation was initiated in the matter.
During investigation, account statement of the complainant’s ICICI Bank account confirmed that the amount was indeed transferred to four different bank accounts fruadulently. Account details of these four bank accounts were also obtained and efforts were made to trace the account holders in Delhi, Jharkhand and West Bengal. But despite their best efforts, the investigators drew a blank.
The investigation on the basis of PAN and Aadhar number of the beneficiary account holders has also been done. CDR and CAF of mobile numbers used in fraud and mobile numbers connected with bank accounts have also been obtained and analysed. IMEI search of relevant IMEI’s has been obtained and analysed. CDR of approximately 100 mobile numbers obtained and analysed. The team also obtained the passenger list of some relevant flights of different airlines and analysed them to track the movement of suspects.
On the basis of technical analysis, a joint team of cyber cell and PS Dwarka North carried out raids in Madanpur Khadar and Karol Bagh and arrested Manoj Yadav. On the basis of his disclosure, the team conducted raids in Ajmer, Rajasthan and arrested his accomplice Alimuddin Ansari.
During interrogation, the accused revealed that it is a big syndicate of cheats having more than 100 members and has its network is spread across many states. Ansari is the mastermind of this syndicate. He allegedly operates his illegal business through multiple unorganised call centers in Jharkhand’s Jamtara, Giridih, Deoghar, Dhanbad and West Bengal’s Wardhman area. Each member has been assigned a different task to be performed in the cheating operation.
