Roukela: Rourkela Police on Sunday arrested four persons for allegedly selling bank accounts to online fraudsters functioning across multiple states.
Among the accused are three bank employees. Eight to ten ATM cards, some documents, and scanned copies of more than 1000 Aadhaar cards from smart phones have been seized.
According to Rourkela SP Nitesh Wadhwani, the arrests followed intelligence from police headquarters about suspicious activities linked to over 1,100 bank accounts in the region but being used all-over India for online scam. “Our investigation revealed that a gang was operating in the city and some bank officials were actively assisting them in opening and selling bank accounts. Once these bank accounts were activated, they were sold to individuals in other states and used for carrying out online frauds,” the SP said.
In the last eight weeks alone, over 800 bank accounts were sold outside the state for which they got a commission of Rs 8,000-Rs 10,000, he informed.
The SP said that other employees of small banks in the region are also under scanner. “The gang was targeting unemployed youth and elderly people in interior areas for opening bank accounts. And more than half of them had no idea about how these accounts were being used,” he noted.
Wadhwani said that the account holders, who were aware of the scam, had a share in every fraud.
He added that more arrests are likely as the investigation progresses.
