Major cheating gang busted in Odisha’s Koraput

Jeypore Sadar Police on Tuesday claimed to have busted a criminal gang allegedly involved in various cyber crimes by arresting three accused. The accused have been identified as Balram Das, Satyaranjan Sahu, and Rajiv Prasad.

As per senior officials, Balram Das had lured one Ranjan Harijan to open an account in ICICI Bank, Jeypore in lieu of a loan amounting to Rs 1,40,000. The accused also purchased a SIM card in Ranjan’s name.

Ranjan subsequently got a call from the bank regarding large transactions in his bank account. He then lodged a police complaint in this regard. On investigation, police found that there were financial transactions of over Rs 2 crore in the bank account. With the help of bank authorities, Rs 15 lakh in the account was frozen by the police.

Senior police officials informed that the accused used to lure various persons in the name of providing loans by opening bank accounts. Later, they used to collect their bank passbook, ATM, Aadhaar card, and other documents which were used to purchase SIM cards in the name of victims.

“The accused used the bank account for transfer of huge money obtained from unknown sources by cheating different people by committing white collar crime to conceal profits gained through illegal activities,” police said in a release.

The accused allegedly had forged rubber stamps of different Notary officials and prepared fake affidavits in the name of GST returns and other valuable documents for cheating people.

Police seized 26 ATM cards, 6 mobile phones, 3 laptops, 10 rubber stamps of Notary, and other documents from the accused.