The cyber police of Balasore have successfully cracked its maiden case of online fraud and arrested five persons who had stolen over Rs 12 lakh from the bank account of a woman a few months back.
The arrests were made after a six-member team of the police station carried out raids across several states. While one among the accused hails from Sundargarh, four others were operating from near Jamtara area of Jharkhand, which is infamous as the phishing capital of India.
Those arrested are Samin Ahmad from Murshidabad of West Bengal, Mohammad Ansari of Margomunda police station area in Jharkhand, Sajeed Iqbal of Bihar’s Saharsa, Niyaz Hussein of Kolkata and MD Rahil of Sunaripada of Sundargarh.
The police have seized Rs 1.69 lakh in cash, 14 ATM cards of different banks, 39 SIM cards and 10 mobile phones from the possession of the accused persons.
As per sources, all the five were involved in stealing of Rs 12,45,999 from the bank accounts of Jyotsnarani Patra, a native of Baligohiri under Nilgiri police limits in Balasore.
Patra had two FDs (fixed deposits) of Rs 5 lakh each and Rs 2.45 lakh in her saving account at an IndusInd Bank’s branch in Balasore. She had sought the help of the cyber police as she lost all the money to cyber fraud after being tricked into sharing all the credentials like her bank account details and OTP by the scamsters.
“After registering a case, we first traced the bank accounts in which the cash was diverted and zeroed in on MD Rahil of Sundargarh. The accused used to open bank account in the name of aquaintances or family members and rent the accounts to fraudsters who in turn used them to divert cash from the accounts of the victims,” said said Meena Bindhani, inspector- in-charge (IIC) of Cyber police station, Balasore.
“Acting on the leads from MD Rahil, we raided multiple locations in West Bengal, Delhi, Mumbai and other areas and arrested the other accused,” she added.