Spoofing fraud: 2 held in MP for demanding money from 4 Cong leaders

In a police complaint, the Congress leaders said they received a phone call displaying Kamal Nath's name on their screen. The caller told them that "Kamal Nath is in urgent need of money".

Bhopal: Crime Branch of Madhya Pradesh police have arrested two Gujarat residents for spoofing the phone number of former Chief Minister Kamal Nath’s office and demanding money from three Congress leaders posing as his office-bearers.

The four Congress leaders who received the call (with Nath’s number displaying on their phone), are — MLA Satish Sikarwar and state party vice president Ashok Singh (both in Gwalior), newly appointed Indore city unit chief Surjit Singh Chadha and former state party treasurer Govind Goyal in Bhopal.

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In a police complaint, the Congress leaders said they received a phone call displaying Kamal Nath’s name on their screen. The caller told them that “Kamal Nath is in urgent need of money”.

However, upon inquiring, they realised that it was a fake call.

One of the leaders, Govind Goyal asked the caller to collect the money (Rs 10 lakh) from his residence in Bhopal.

Meanwhile, he also called the other three leaders to his home.

Later, two men from Gujarat came to Goyal’s home to collect the money, but as the city police was alerted, the duo was caught and handed over to the Bhopal Crime Branch for further probe.

“We have also given a written complaint to the Crime Branch and a case has been registered. Both the accused have been arrested,” K. K. Mishra, Madhya Pradesh Congress media in-charge said on Thursday.

Subsequent probe revealed that two young men identified as Sagar Parmar and Pintu Parmar (both residents of Gujarat’s Mehsana) were working as Angadia (couriers) for some hawala operator.

The duo, who currently reside in Bhopal’s Piplani area, were actually asked by someone in Indore to collect the money from the Congress leader Govind Goyal in Bhopal.

Caller ID spoofing involves a caller deliberately falsifying the information transmitted to the recipient’s caller ID display to disguise identity.

In this case, Nath’s phone number was displayed on the phones of the four Congress leaders using some spoof call/fake call app, police said.