Dehradun: The Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF) has arrested the kingpin of a cyber fraud case, who allegedly duped people through online trading, from Jaipur, police said on Monday. The man, who is a native of Bihar's Bhagalpur district, is wanted in 11 states in connection with similar cases.
The accused, identified as Chandan Kumar Yadav, lured victims through social media advertisements of high profits by doing online trading. The victims were duped by asking them to download a mobile app, DITIGAMAX where the dashboard displayed their money along with higher profits. The accused used SIM cards issued on fake IDs and bank accounts of fictitious companies.
The STF team has recovered three mobile phones, a laptop, seven cheque books and passbooks, seven debit cards, different SIM cards and fake seals from the accused.
The fraud came to light after an employee of the education department in Almora district lodged a complaint few days back. The employee said that he recently come across an advertisement of online trading on Facebook. On clicking the link, he was contacted by a foreign WhatsApp number and then asked to join a WhatsApp group. After joining the group, he was asked to download a mobile application named DITIGAMAX for online trading.
Around Rs 30 lakh was fraudulently deposited in different bank accounts provided through the WhatsApp group for online trading through the app. After investing, the education department employee apparently earned a three times higher profit and a sum of Rs 90 lakh was displayed on the app's dashboard within a few days. On the basis of the victim's complaint, a case was registered against the unknown accused.
Cyber crime officials obtained data from related banks, service providing companies, Meta and Google for information about bank accounts, mobile numbers, Gmail and WhatsApp used in the incident. On checking the data, it was found that SIM cards and bank accounts of other persons, pre-activated by the victim, were used by cyber thugs. Money was obtained fraudulently in different bank accounts located in Delhi, Karnataka, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and other states. Also, the accused used many SIM cards issued from the IDs of other people and bank accounts.
While verifying the bank accounts and mobile numbers, STF team found that those were opened on the basis of fake IDs. The mastermind behind the cyber fraud was identified as Chandan Kumar Yadav.
Raids were conducted at many places to nab the accused. But he managed to dodge police by frequently changing his location. Finally with technical assistance, the STF team arrested him from Jaipur.
It has been revealed that victims were duped of lakhs of rupees through the dubious app. Money would be transferred from the victims' accounts to different banks and later withdrawn from ATMs.
SSP STF Ayush Aggarwal said that to lure victims, profit amounts were displayed on the dashboard of the mobile app. "The accused has said that he had opened bank accounts by creating fake firms in the names of fictitious people. He used to link mobile numbers and emails to the bank accounts for internet banking. The STF team is contacting the police of other states for more information regarding the complaints received in this regard," Aggarwal said.
Investigations have also revealed that 11 complaints of cyber crimes have been registered against the arrested accused in Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Jharkhand and other states.
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