The Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of the Delhi Police busted a gang of online cheats, the cops said on Wednesday. The cops have arrested 4 accused persons later identified as Hardeep Harnal (35), a resident of Punjab’s Mohali, Himanshu Verma (27), a resident of UP’s Sitapur, Sharafat Ali (29), a resident of Haryana’s Ambala, Sagar Bagga (30), a resident of Delhi’s Rohini.
The accused persons used to dupe the victims by offering the company’s articles like pens, belts, bags etc on discount by using fake websites created in the name of the company. With this modus operendi, the gang has cheated over Rs 1 crore.
The Delhi High Court had referred many matters of trademark and copyrights violations on many leading companies, including Montblanc Simplo GMBH to the IFSO Unit of Special Cel,l in which the imposters had created many fake websites of the company to dupe gullible customers by offering huge discounts on company’s articles.
The complainant company, Montblanc-Simplo GMBH Versus Montblancindia.com and ORS, alleged before the High Court that the defendants were selling fake products in the name of the plaintiffs i.e. MONTBLANC-SIMPLO GMBH by using some fake website and were collecting money from gullible persons by projecting that they were connected with the plaintiff. It was also alleged that the defendant was using fraudulent websites viz. www.montblancindia.com etc. The matter was taken up for enquiry and after enquiry, a case was registered and the investigation was taken up, the officials said.
DCP (IFSO) Prashant Gautam said: “During the investigation, a team was constituted. Later, the team gathered technical information about the alleged websites, email ids, bank details and scrutinised it based on technical investigation and the team identified and arrested 4 accused persons, Gautam confirmed.
During further investigation, it came to notice that the alleged persons were using many fake websites — www.montblancindia.com, www.montblancindia.co, www.montblanc.co, which are similar to that of the complainant website and were receiving the hefty amount from the gullible victims in the name of providing the complainant company’s products. Further raids are being conducted to arrest the accused persons, Gautam added.