65 people arrested for duping Delhiites with electricity bill trick
New Delhi: In a major catch, the Intelligence Fusion Strategic Operations Unit (IFSO) of the Delhi Police has busted a gang of cyber fraudsters, who were cheating innocent citizens on the pretext of updating of BSES electricity bill.
65 accused persons have been arrested in connection with the case so far, the officials informed on Thursday. The busted pan India module was operating from different parts of the country and the arrested cyber cheats are residents of Rajasthan, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar and Delhi, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) IFSO KPS Malhotra mentioned.
"Recently, it was found that fraudsters are sending random messages to people that their electricity bill has not been updated in the system and that by tonight their electricity connection would be disconnected. Meanwhile, gullible victims assume the message to be genuine, and with the fear that their electricity connection might be disconnected by night, call the number mentioned in the message. During the call, the fraudster impersonates an electricity officer. Through social engineering, the fraudster either takes the bank account details or makes the victim install remote access software. Once the details are shared, the fraudster transfers the amount from the victim's account to the fraudulently obtained accounts using the remote access software", Malhotra quoted.
During the investigation, the complaints received on NCRP were analysed and it was found that more than 200 complaints have been lodged concerning the BSES scam. Keeping in view the gravity of the matter, the technical analysis and the financial trail of all the complaints were undertaken together. Through the analysis, it was found that the network is spread all over India, Malhotra said.
From the behaviour analysis of the mobile phones, it was noticed that if the mobile phones of a module are switched off, then all would go off the radar and would shift to their hideouts. To bust the whole network, different teams were constituted and simultaneous raids were planned across more than 22 cities, including Jaipur, Indore, Ludhiana, Jamtara, Karmatand, Girdih, Deoghar, Dhanbad, Kolkata, Uttari Dinajpur, Medinipur West & East, South 24 Parganas, Ahmedabad, Gandhi Nagar, Surat, Mumbai, Katihar, Bihar and Delhi/NCR, DCP IFSO also said.
During the interrogation, it was revealed that they used to procure the sim cards from local vendors using fake documents. After that to transfer the cheated amount they used to open accounts in the bank based on fake documents, and in many cases, they also used the bank accounts of the people of the lower strata of society, and in return, they were lured with a commission, Malhotra confirmed.
