3 Men Including One From Bihar Arrested For Cyber Crime In Odisha’s Koraput

Koraput: Police have arrested three persons for their alleged involvement in cyber crime in Odisha’s Koraput district.

As per a complaint filed at Jeypore police station, Ranjan Harijan, a resident of the town, was approached by one of the arrested persons, Balaram Das of Similiguda in the district to open an account in ICICI Bank. Balaram assured Ranjan of facilitating bank loan of Rs 1.5 lakh.

Some days after Ranjan opened the account in ICICI Bank’s branch in Jeypore, he got a call from the bank telling him that there were digital transactions of huge amount in his account. Surprised by the transactions, he filed the complaint at Jeypore police station.

During investigation, police found that more than Rs 2 crore had been transferred and withdrawn from Ranjan’s account in a few days between September 27 and October 3. Around Rs 15 lakh in his account was frozen by police.

Further investigation led the police to arrest two other persons of the gang. One of them is Satya Ranjan Sahu of Belpada under Rajnagar police limits in Kendrapada district who was staying in Bhoisahi under Nayapalli police station in Bhubaneswar. The third person is Rajib Kumar Prasad of Balwan village under Gopalganj police station in Bihar, who was staying in Kolathia under Khandagiri police station in Bhubaneswar.

They confessed to the police that they used to lure people in the name of providing loans by opening bank accounts. Later, they collected their bank passbook, ATM card, copies of Aadhaar card, and other documents which were used to purchase SIM cards in the name of victims.

“The accused used the bank account for transfer of huge money obtained from unknown sources by cheating different people by committing white collar crime to conceal profits gained through illegal activities,” police said in a release.

The police have seized 26 ATM cards, 6 mobile phones, 3 laptops, 10 rubber stamps of Notary and other documents from the arrested persons.