Five linkmen of Jamtara gang held by Kolkata Police in a week

KOLKATA: Five persons were held by the Kolkata Police in the past week for allegedly duping people by siphoning off money on the pretext of disconnecting electricity connections or providing KYC.

According to sources, on October 8, this year a case was registered against unknown fraudsters based on a complaint lodged by one Santeswar Barman of central government quarters at the Parnasree police station. The complainant told the cops that he was duped of around Rs 7.88 lakh on the pretext of paying the electricity bill. Barman also claimed that the caller introduced himself as a CESC official. The unknown fraudster made Barman install a remote access application on his smartphone and later siphoned off the money.

During the probe, police last week nabbed two persons identified as Santosh Kumar Singh of Liluah in Howrah and Sajauddin Ansari of Deoghar in Jharkhand.

Santosh was arrested first and after interrogating him, cops found the whereabouts of Ansari. From the second accused person, police seized 11 SIM cards that were used to call the cybercrime victims.

These pre-activated SIM cards were being procured by Ansari from East Midnapore.

Also, he used to receive ATM-cum-debit-cards of several people from Santosh. These bank accounts were used to transfer the cheated money. Later Ansari used to withdraw it.

Cops also came to know that Ansari used to hand over the pre-activated SIM cards to members of the Jamtara gang for making fraudulent calls to the people.Based on the statements of the arrested duo, police on Monday conducted a raid at the Contai central bus stand area and nabbed three persons identified as Subhajit Maity, Tapan Maity and Dilip Kumar Mondal. Police have also seized 10 SIM cards and 11 debit cards from them. The three youths used to sell pre-activated SIM cards to the Jamtara gang members.