Bhubaneswar: Police in Odisha’s Jagatsinghpur district have dismantled a cyber fraud racket operating out of a Jana Seva Kendra and arrested two brothers accused of cheating unsuspecting people of huge sums of money.
The accused, identified as Sheikh Abu Sofian and his younger brother Sheikh Abu Kalam Yusuf, residents of Akhun Mohalla village, were apprehended in Kataka and subsequently produced before a court.
According to police, the duo operated a Jana Seva Kendra at Krishnanandapur market under Krishnanandapur police limits. They allegedly exploited their access to public service infrastructure by capturing customers’ biometric fingerprints and obtaining One-Time Passwords (OTPs) under the guise of processing routine public service requests and Know-Your-Customer (KYC) verifications. These credentials were then misused to perform unauthorised electronic transfers, draining funds directly from victims’ bank accounts.
The fraud came to the fore after several victims noticed unapproved debits from their accounts and lodged formal complaints with both Krishnanandapur police station and the Jagatsinghpur Cyber police station. Among the complainants was Shamsher Ali, a senior citizen from Bareghar village, who reported losing ₹8.9 lakh due to fraudulent activities involving an employee, Sheikh Anwar Iqbal. Overall, at least nine cyber fraud cases totalling ₹57.53 lakh have been unravelled, with broader estimates suggesting the overall transactions connected to the scam could exceed ₹1 crore.
Following the flood of complaints, Jagatsinghpur SP Ankit Kumar Verma formed a special squad led by Tirtol Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) Ajay Kumar Das. The team successfully traced the suspects to Kataka, where they were taken into custody.
Following the arrests, law enforcement agencies froze all bank accounts linked to the brothers to prevent the further movement of stolen assets. SDPO Ajay Kumar Das stated that police are actively pursuing the case to map out the full scale of the financial crime, locate additional fraudulent transfers, and track down another accomplice who is on the run.
