Three members of a gang arrested for cheating in Hyderabad

The police seized seven mobile phones, bank debit cards and also a country-made pistol along with six bullets from one of the gang members

Hyderabad: Cyber crooks are coming up with new ways to misuse technology and dupe people. In the latest scam busted by the Hyderabad Cybercrime police on Saturday, three persons targeting people with official email accounts were arrested while their gang leader, allegedly a Nigerian national, is absconding.

The police seized seven mobile phones, bank debit cards and also a country-made pistol along with six bullets from one of the gang members. Police said the arrested persons, Sagar Mahato, Kumar Gaurav Singh and Sanjay Agarwal, all from West Bengal, had duped two persons in the city of Rs 50 lakh and Rs 36 lakh in separate incidents.

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According to KVM Prasad, ACP (Cybercrime), the gang was headed by Nigerian national Shedrick Paul and targeted persons who were using email accounts provided from their workplaces.

“The gang collected such official email ids and sent an email attached with link containing malware. When the unsuspecting person clicked on the link, the electronic device he used, which in these cases were mobile phones, were compromised and all the details of the victim, including the mobile phone number, landed with the fraudster,” he said, adding that the gang then used the official email to send a request letter to the telecom service provider asking to provide a duplicate SIM citing loss or damage of the old SIM card.

“After submitting forged KYC documents, the gang took a new SIM card, which then received all communication including OTPs from the victim’s bank account. They then withdrew money through internet banking after adding their own accounts as beneficiaries,” the ACP said. The three arrested persons told the police that they had transferred the Nigerian’s share from the loot to him in the form of bitcoins. The weapon was seized from Sanjay Agarwal, with the police suspecting that he had procured the pistol from some weapon mafia.

The police also found that Sagar Mahato was involved in a cheating case registered by the Mumbai Cybercrime Police for cheating a person of Rs 2 crore.

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