4 held for duping bizmen of Rs 1 cr through fake franchise of big MNCs, popular brands

New Delhi: Four people have been arrested by the Delhi Police's Cyber Cell for allegedly cheating several businessmen a total of Rs. 1.1 crore on the pretext of providing them with franchise of companies such as Haldiram, Amul, Patanjali, among others.

Police added that the accused have been involved in more than 126 cases of cyber fraud so far and have been carrying out the crime in as many as 16 states through fake websites where they invited persons to invest in franchise of big MNCs and popular brands. The accused have been identified as one Vikas Mistry, Vinod Kumar, Santosh Kumar and Vinay Singh.

DCP (Cyber Cell) Anyesh Roy said that the fake website created by the accused persons would act as a pop-up on Google search following which several victims fell for it and clicked on the link. The present arrest was based on the complaint of one woman who had stated in her plaint that she had found the website on Google and hence wanted to open a Haldiram store near her house, following which she called on the given mobile number and filled up the registration forms and paid the registration fees, the DCP said.

The DCP added that in the last two months, the woman ended up paying Rs 11.74 lakh as she thought them to be Haldiram executives but grew suspicious when the men asked for more money but did nothing about the dealership.

"They (accused) were using more than 36 mobile phones and multiple bank accounts. Our team traced their location with these details and conducted several raids in Bihar, Haryana, Punjab and Delhi," police said.

While Vikas, the main accused, was arrested from Nalanda in Bihar, the other associates were nabbed from Faridabad and Delhi, police added. As per their modus operandi, Mistry would call the victims and pose as an official from the food company while Vinod and Santosh would help siphon off the money. Vinay used to design the website and promote them through Google Ads, DCP Roy said.