Eight arrested for online fraud in Rourkela

Rourkela: At a time when the move towards digitisation is fast catching up so is the associated risks of online fraud. Rourkela police today arrested eight people in connection with an online fraud of Rs 1 crore.

Acting on a tip off, police caught eight people in Bondamunda area of the city for duping innocent people on promise of awarding cash prize of Rs 25 lakh on deposit of Rs 1 lakh under ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ scheme.

Reports said most of the local agents who are unemployed youths were made easy targets by the mastermind. Initially the agents had to give their ATM cards and all the transactions were made through them. Lured to get Rs 3,000 for collecting Rs 1 lakh, these youths used to lure other people and spread their network.

All the collected money was transferred to a Delhi-based account.

Initial police investigation revealed that the mastermind of the online theft was from Delhi identified as Umar Ali. A special police team has already left for Delhi to trace Ali.

Not only Odisha but their chain of fraud had also spread its roots across many other States.

“We have arrested eight persons while two others are still to be apprehended. After collecting data on the duped bank accounts we have come to know that the fraud could come to a total of somewhere around Rs 1 crore since most of the transactions were 12 to 13 lakh rupees,” PK Mishra, DSP Rourkela said.

Asked, an arrestee said, “We do not know who the mastermind is. We only got a phone call for spreading a networking business and save people from tax but after working for nearly 15 days we stopped working.”