Telangana: Adilabad police arrest five-member cyber fraudster gang

Police seized 2,125 discorded mobile phones, 107 SIM cards, 600 mobile batteries, and five two-wheelers were seized from the members

Adilabad: Police arrested five persons who were allegedly planning cybercrimes across the country using old mobile phones. The accused were produced before the media here on Tuesday. Police seized 2,125 discarded mobile phones, 107 SIM cards, 600 mobile batteries, and five two-wheelers. One member of the gang was absconding.

Briefing details of the arrests, Superintendent of Police Akhil Mahajan said Mohammad Merujal, Mahabub Alam, Mohammad Jamal, Md Ujir and Abdullah, all from Dalan in Katihar district of Bihar were apprehended while moving suspiciously in the town.

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The kingpin of the gang, Thabaraq was still at large. Mahajan said the accused gathered old mobile phones in exchange for plastic household appliances from rural folks. He revealed that they would later use the phones to dupe the public by looting huge amounts through phishing by posing as officials of banks.

The SP said the five had admitted to procuring 12,000 mobile phones from Karnataka earlier. The gang had hatched a conspiracy to cheat gullible public across the country using the old phones and escape the law since the phones and SIM cards were registered in the names of the earlier owners.

Akhil commended cybercrime DSP Haseebullah, Adilabad DSP Jeevan Reddy, II town Inspector Karunakar Rao and CCS Inspector Chandrashekhar for preventing the conspiracy by nabbing the six.