A GANG INVOLVED IN ONLINE CHEATING

OF DEBIT/CREDIT CARDS THROUGH PAYTM WALLET  BUSTED.  A CALL CENTRE OF CHEATS RUNNING FULLFLEDGEDLY IN SAGARPUR AREA UNEARTHED.

INTRODUCTION:

With the arrest of five cheats, a joint team of Anti Robbery Cell, South West District and PS Dwarka North have solved many incidents of credit/debit card frauds causing wrongful financial loses to these card holders and Paytm wallet holders.  A full-fledgedly running Call Center employing male and female employees to dupe card holders is also busted.  A huge recovery of fake SIM cards, cell phones, stolen data of SBI Credit/debit cards customers, KYC forms, Registers etc. has been made from this Call Centre which was being run in Sagarpur area from a rented premise.

ACCUSED ARRESTED:

1. Pramod Kumar, 28 Years, S/O Sh. PuranLal R/O H. No. 466, Gyan Complex, near Shani Mandir, Village Sarhol, Sec. 18, Gurgaon, Haryana; Permanent address Village GobalPatipura, Post/Tehsil BisalPur, Pilibhit, UP

2. Mohit Kumar, aged 21 years S/O Shiv Kumar R/O WZ-673, Nangal Raya, Delhi Cantt., New Delhi;

3. Gaurav Kumar, 24 years, S/O Sh. Babu Ram R/O RZ-I/81, West Sagarpur, New Delhi; Present address RZ-H-46, 3rd Floor, Raghu Nagar, near Gupta Bakery Delhi;

4. AtulRawat, 24 years, S/O Parmod Kumar Rawat R/O A-1/175, MadhuVihar, Dwarka, Sec. 5, New Delhi;
5. Varun, 30 years, S/o Virender Kumar R/o RZ- 95/11, near Shiv Mandir, west Sagarpur, New Delhi

INCIDENT AND INVESTIGATION:

Sh. Kuldeep Sharma S/o Sh.Tek Chand R/o Flat No. 97, Sector-17, Pocket- D, Dwarka, New Delhi made a complaint to the police that he had received a phone call from a lady caller who introduced herself as the employee of SBI and induced the caller that he had accumulated bonus/reward points in his debit/credit card account and they can redeem these points in his Paytm account if he so desires. The complainant, thinking the caller as the bonafide employee of a reputed nationalized bank agreed to her suggestion and divulged the secret details of his cards so that bonus points are redeemed in his account. But shortly after the conversation, he found that his account was debited of Rs. 44,949 by making 6 transactions in quick succession. He filed a complaint at PS Dwarka North in this regard. A case of Cheating vide FIR No 11/2017 dated 11.02.2017 u/s 420 IPC was registered in this regard.

During the course of investigation a joint team of Anti Robbary Cell, South West Distt and PS Dwarka North comprising SI Arvind Kumar, SI Hans Raj Swami, ASI Mahender, ASI Mukesh, HC Rakesh, HC Vishal, HC Umesh, HC BrajLal, Ct. Sudhir, Ct. Mannu, Ct. Sundar and Ct. Deepak was formed under the leadership of Inspr. Vijay Singh Chandel,Incharge ARC/SWD and Insp. JasmohinderChaudhary SHO/ PS Dwarka North under the close supervision of Sh. Rajender Singh, ACP/OPS to apprehend the cheats involved.

The team members worked hard and collected details of cell phones used in commission of crime and followed the money trail of transfer of cheated money.  They contacted Paytm authorities to provide details of all transactions held in the account of the Victim.  After a thorough and technical probe done, the team rounded up a mastermind of the whole operation namelyPramod S/o PuranLal from Sarhol, Gurgaon on 11.2.17 and later in the day his other three associates were also arrested after conducting raid on Call Centre being run in Sagarpur area. On 14/2/17 Varun, the seller of pre activated SIM was also arrested. At the instance of arrested accused persons many a cell phones, SIM cards, Registers etc. were also recovered.  They all are taken on police custody remand for three days to probe deeper in the whole racket of online fraud.

MODUS OPERANDI:

On interrogation it was revealed that accused Promod along with one Rahul Verma had activated a number of E-Wallets on the basis of fake SIM cards. With the help of these Paytm wallets which are activated on fake and unverified SIM, they would get the money transferred causing financial loss to the victim.  The victim and authorities would not be able to trace the recipient of cheated money easily as all the documents and cell phones are found bogus and unverified. The first group of cheats would later transfer the money to the accounts of their other associates after deducting their share of booty.  

The second groups of Cheats are the men who take a premise on rent and start a Call Centre and ask its male and female employees to call and dupe the innocent victims by calling them on phones which are procured on fake SIM cards by posing them as the employees of reputed bank. Gaurav, the person who had taken a house on rent at WZ 61A, Gali No. 14 Vashisht Park, Sagarpur and started call Centre in Sagarpur area had employed about 7/8 male and females employees on salaries around 10,000/ p.m.  Immediately after employment each employee will undergo training for three days and would learn as to how to speak to the customers and even they are supplied a readymade written note to read and memorise.  These employees are well educated and conversant in both Hindi and English languages. Gaurav will provide them the details of persons who use credit/debit cards of different bank.  The data of SBI bank credit card/debit holders had been procured by one of the associates of Gaurav namely Ajay. These tele callers by using unverified mobile phones and SIM cards would obtain their credit card number, their validity and CVV number of the Credit card/dabit cards of the customer. Both the tele-caller namely Atul, Mohit assisted by one lady caller namely Jeny, after collecting the information of the Credit card/Debit card of the customer would immediately pass it over to the team leader Gaurav Kumar. During this process telecallers Atul and Mohit would transfer amount Rs. 10 in the account of the customer to prove that the transaction is being done by the bonafide employee and earn credibility and authenticity and succeed in getting their OTP Numbers.

The tele caller will call at the cell phone numbers given in the data and start communicating him step by step giving the details of his name and address and will procure the credit card 16 digit numbers saying that it starts from 4 (VISA cards) and 5 (Master Cards) depending upon the nature of credit card.  Initially he will assure the victim that they are calling from the bank and also send Rs. 10 to his account  so that confidence of the victim is restored and he is assured that he is communicating with the bonafide employee of the bank.  Once confidence is build up he would ask him as to how he wanted to redeem his accrued bonus points whether by making cash credit in his account or by deducting the amount when he goes for shopping.    Most of the time Victim goes for cash credit.  The tele caller will also suggest the victim that the scheme is going to be discontinued very soon by the bank and his points will go waste if they are not redeemed before the new policy of bank starts.  The fake employee of the Call centre will engage the victim and on the pretext of crediting his bonus points would ask him OTP appears on his screen. Since there is limit of transaction Rs. 10,000/- through paytm and the same can be extended upto Rs. 20,000 without KYC. The cheat will ask for the withdrawal of money Rs. 4,990/- from the customers and ask OTP.  He would assure the customer that initially the amount would be withdrawn and later it would be credited in his account. As soon as OTP is known to the cheat he will make transaction in the fake account from the customer’s bank account and conversation is closed.  

The group of cheat preferred the customers who had got credit cards of SBI bank and operate Paytm as in case of SBI, OTP remains unchanged for 10 minutes and the cheat get sufficient time to induce the victim to divulge secret details.  In credit cards of other banks the OTP time limit is less say 3 minutes to 5 minutes and cheats are not able to accomplish their task within the given time.   

Gaurav had employed 7-8 employees including female employees in his call centre.  The girls who had recently been employed and were not aware of the nefarious design of Gaurav and illegal activities being done there, were very happy after seeking job but their hopes belied when police team raided the premises and they were taken aback.  A girl who was employed for long and was well aware of the illegal activities being done there and presently evading questioning will be proceeded against as per law.

At the instance of arrested accused Pramod Kumar the Call centre was raided and Gaurav Kumar S/o Babu Ram, the owner of call centre and his employees namely Atul Rawat S/o Pramod Kumar Rawat and Mohit Kumar S/o Shiv Kumar are also arrested in this case on 11.02.17. One accused Rahul Verma @ RJ who was in collision with Promod Kumar in arranging Paytm wallets and accounts where the cheated amount to be transferred has still be absconding.  Varun, the person who arranged all the pre-activated SIMs for the cheats has also been arrested in the case.

PROFILE OF ACCUSED PERSONS:

1. Accused Gaurav is a student of BA IInd Year. He belongs to a middle class family. His father is an electrician. He is a good player of cricket and has represented state level through Rehman Cricket Club but due to an injury he stopped playing cricket.  After that he came in contact of one Ajay and indulged in criminal activities.

2. Accused Pramod is a permanent resident of Vill. Gobal Patipura Post& Tehsil Bisalpur Distt Pilibhit UP.  He has studied B. Tech in Mechanical from a Private College in Barelly. He is very smart in technology and had worked in PayTm as a marketing executive and did the job of KYC verification of PayTM customers. In the process he got Paytm Customers personal information and used it to get fake SIM’s and to open paytm wallets. Then he shared these paytm wallets information to his other associates and cheated the credit card holders.

3. Accused Atul is a graduate from PGDAV College. His father is a driver and mother is a private tutor. He belongs to an educated family. His elder brother is a software engineer and younger brother is a CA. He has a good communication skill in Hindi as well as in English. He worked at idea call centre. He came in contact of Gaurav and started working for him.

4. Accused Mohit belongs to a lower middle class family. His father is a tailor and mother is a house wife. He is a student of BA IInd Year. Mohit is Gaurav’s childhood friend. He was in search of a good job. When Gaurav offered him job of telecaller, he joined his call centre.

5. Accused Varun is a permanent resident of Bihar and graduated from Bihar university. His father is retired from a NGO of Bihar Govt. and mother is a house wife. He came in Delhi  three years ago and started working in Aircel as a promoter. He came into contacts of these cheats to earn more money.

RECOVERY-

1. 71 Sim Cards

2. 16 Mobile Hand sets

3. 150 Pages of details of Credit Card holders

4. 20 Mobiquick QR codes

5. 50 ATM KYC upgrade forms

6. 16 Slip Pads

7. 08 Registers

8. One Santro Car