In what has been termed as a major breakthrough in a case involving the alleged digital arrest of people with the intention of deceiving them, the Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Police on Monday said it has arrested four Taiwanese among the 17 suspects. While two of them were nabbed in Delhi, the other two were arrested in Bengaluru, said Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Hardik Makadiya.
The alleged fraud involved an elaborate scheme that saw the suspects posing as government officials in various departments, including the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the Mumbai Crime Branch of the Maharashtra Police, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Reserve. Bank of India (RBI). This elaborate scheme also saw false claims made in the name of Mumbai court, misuse of Aadhaar card and bank account.
The gang “digitally bound” a senior citizen for 10 days, monitored his phone calls and made him deposit Rs 79.34 lakh as “refund” for processing the “RBI case”, said Joint Commissioner (Crime) Sharad Singhal. According to the police, a senior citizen has registered a complaint that some people claiming to be officials of TRAI, CBI and cyber crime branch were alleging that his account was being used for illegal transactions.
“After receiving a complaint last month, our teams raided areas in Gujarat, Delhi, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Odisha and Maharashtra and arrested 17 people, including four Taiwanese nationals, for running this racket across the country. We believe they may have targeted around 1,000 people. XNUMX so far,” Singhal told reporters.
In a joint operation by the Cyber Cyber crime police team, Taiwanese Mu Chi Sung alias Mark and Chang Hao Yun alias Marco, were arrested from the Hotel Taj Palace in Delhi along with two others – Wang Chun Wei ( 26) and Shen Wei (35) – from Bengaluru after boarding a flight from Taiwan to Delhi.
The money stolen from the complainant was deposited in different accounts. Based on this, raids were carried out in Surat, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, and Limbdi and eight people were arrested from Gujarat, Rajasthan, Delhi and Odisha. These individuals are said to have regularly provided rented bank accounts to Taiwanese suspects and received a commission from the proceeds of crime.
A statement issued by the Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Police on Monday said, “This crime identified a new modus operandi where rooted mobile phones were used – 20 mobile phones were found connected to routers, transmitting the OTP links of different bank accounts to Taiwanese IDs A technical analysis revealed that more than 120 mobile phones were connected to it and such setups were active in Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai.
Based on this, raids were carried out at institutions in Mumbai and Delhi and one of the prime suspects, Saif Haider, was arrested. He was in direct contact with a Taiwanese man named Mark.
Mark is said to have provided all these rooted mobile phones and routers. He used to bring the necessary equipment from Taiwan to install this setup. He has traveled to Cambodia, Dubai, China and several cities in India, including Bengaluru, Delhi, and Mumbai.
During a recent visit to India on October 10, Mark and his partner Marco were said to be planning to expand their business. They allegedly collected rental accounts from their agents in India and used them to fund illegal betting websites and online scams. They were arrested on this trip.
In addition, during the raid in Bengaluru, two other Taiwanese citizens Wang Chun Wei alias Sumoka (26) and Shen Wei Haw alias Krish (35) operated in the same manner as the previously discovered technical devices and escaped Mark’s assistant named Sevanna and the suspects. Saif Haider has been arrested, officials said.
“The mobile application used by the gang was developed by the Taiwanese suspects. They have also integrated online wallets into their system. The money received from the victims was transferred to other bank accounts and crypto accounts in Dubai using this app. They used to get a commission through hawala for the money they spent on that app,” explained Singhal.
The racket was run in call centers designed to resemble the offices of investigative firms and where video calls were made, he added. The police recovered Rs 12.75 lakh cash, 761 SIM cards, 120 mobile phones, 96 check books, 92 debit cards and 42 passbooks related to the accounts used for the transactions, said Singhal.