Bhubaneswar: The Cyber Police in Bhubaneswar busted an inter-state cybercrime syndicate with the arrest of four members accused of cheating a local businessman of nearly Rs 7 lakh through a sophisticated impersonation scam.
It involved malware-laden APK files disguised as official traffic challans.
According to sources, the victim, Jaswant Jena from Mayurbhanj district, received a suspicious SMS on September 12, 2025, purportedly from the Regional Transport Office (RTO) regarding a pending challan. The message contained a link to a fake RTO website embedded with an “RTOChallan.apk” file. Upon clicking it, Jena’s smartphone froze, rendering it unresponsive. Shortly afterward, he noticed unauthorised transactions with Rs 4 lakh debited immediately, followed by additional withdrawals totalling Rs 7 lakh over two days.
“My phone remained hung till September 13 and a total of Rs 7 lakh was debited from my account in two days. I deactivated my bank account immediately and filed a complaint at the cyber police station,” Jena recounted his ordeal to a local news channel. He promptly reported the incident via the 139 helpline and registered a formal complaint at the Cyber Crime & Economic Offences police station in Bhubaneswar.
After seven months of probe, police finally managed to identify the accused. Two among them were nabbed from Hyderabad in Telangana, and another two from Jharkhand. The arrested individuals have been identified as Mohammed Salman, Mohammed Abbas, Mohammed Amir and Mukesh Kori. The gang operated a mule account network, which was used to transfer the defrauded money. The funds were then routed to Mukesh Turi, believed to be the kingpin of the gang and a resident of Jamtara in Jharkhand. “Abaas earned Rs 6,000 per account. Salman worked as a link between Abaas and Amir, who received Rs 8,000 per account. They worked as intermediaries,” Bhubaneswar DCP Jagmohan Meena told the media.
“We have frozen Rs 2 lakh which was in circulation and seized their mobile phones. One of the modus operandi of this gang was to send RTOChallan.apk messages. If you click on it, an application will get automatically downloaded on your phone, allowing them access to your banking details,” Commissioner of Police Suresh Dev Datta Singh said, warning citizens against accessing any .apk file.
