Kolkata: A youth was arrested by the Cyber Crime branch of the Kolkata Police for allegedly duping people on the pretext of paying traffic fine challans through a fake mParivahan App.
According to police, several complaints were lodged last year on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP), alleging that unknown cyber fraudsters duped victims on the pretext of paying fake traffic challans.
According to the complaints, the victims received text messages claiming their vehicles had violated traffic rules and that a prosecution had been issued. The messages urged them to click on a link to install a purported mParivahan App to check details and pay the fine. However, upon clicking the link, substantial sums were fraudulently deducted from their bank accounts.
During the investigation, police found that the ‘apk’ file named ‘mParivahan’ was hosted on a server linked to two IP addresses of a tech company.
On contacting the company, officers were informed that the server was registered using a Gmail ID. Google authorities later revealed that the e-mail account had been accessed through an IP address belonging to SBL Telecom in Gurugram, Haryana. Further inquiry with SBL Telecom showed that the IP address was mapped to another IP registered in the name of Deepak Kumar from Jhajjar, Haryana.
Police subsequently collected the account opening form, KYC documents and subscriber records from the concerned authorities and issued four notices to Kumar directing him to appear.
He responded to the first notice but skipped the next two. Following the fourth notice, he appeared at Lalbazar, where he was arrested after failing to provide satisfactory answers to the investigators’ queries.
Kolkata Police has urged citizens not to fall prey to messages containing traffic challan information, advising them to read such texts carefully. Fraudulent messages typically ask recipients to download an app or image, whereas genuine traffic prosecution notices direct users to visit an official government website for details.