Fake PhonePe payments: Four from Nizamabad held in Nirmal

The four confessed to duping staffers of fuel stations under the guise of sending funds to their mobile phones through digital payment application PhonePe for around two years.

Nirmal: Four persons from Nizamabad district were arrested on Thursday for duping staffers of fuel stations by faking payments on the PhonePe app in several parts of Nirmal, Nizamabad, Siddipet and Kamareddy districts. Four mobile phones and four motorbikes were seized from them.

Briefing details of the arrests, Nirmal DSP Ganga Reddy said Jamandla Bharat, D Sai Kiran, Rathod Hari and Rathod Jeevan from Kishan Thanda in Renjal mandal in Nizamabad district were apprehended while moving suspiciously. On being interrogated, the four confessed to duping staffers of fuel stations under the guise of sending funds to their mobile phones through digital payment application PhonePe for around two years. They admitted to thus siphoning off over Rs.6 lakh by visiting fuel stations in the four districts.

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The modus operandi was to first transfer Rs.200 to win the trust of the fuel station staffer. They would then ask the staffer to give them hard cash, which they would assure to pay him back in digital form through PhonePe. They would show that they had paid sums ranging from Rs.2,000 to Rs 8,000, and take the money as hard cash by acting as if they had made the digital transaction. They would then shared the money among them.

Their act, however, was exposed when three victims approached the police, who identified them with the help of the registration numbers of the two-wheelers they had used while visiting the fuel stations.