Inter-State Cybercrime Racket Busted, 2 Fraudsters Held In Odisha’s Puri

Puri: With the arrest of two fraudsters, police on Tuesday claimed to have busted an inter-state cyber crime racket in the Sri Jagannath Temple Bhakt Nibas in Odisha’s Puri.

The accused, identified as Chandan Singh (27) of Keonjhar and a SIM salesperson and middleman Goutam Sahoo (39) of Bhadrak, were allegedly duping tourists by creating a fake website for booking of rooms in the pilgrim town.

Five mobile phones and 31 SIM cards have been seized and efforts to obtain details of all these SIM Cards and arrest other accused persons are on, police sources said.

The two were nabbed following a complaint filed by Administrator (Development) of Sri Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) AK Jena.

The official had approached the police in November last year alleging that someone had created a fake website in the name of Nilanchal Bhakta Nibas using a mobile number 7735227692 in the webpage and had cheated many people by taking money towards booking of rooms.

In course of investigation, it was found that a a module was operating to defraud tourists and the principal accused traced to Gobardhan area in Mathura district of Uttar Pradesh.

It was fund that the SIM card used in the crime was issued by Chandan and later sold to the fraudster through Goutam and another accused from Alwar in Rajasthan. Chandan had reportedly sold more than 100 pre-activated SIM Cards to the criminals through this channel for committing the cyber fraud.

Sources said Goutam was arrested by Dwaraka Cyber PS in Delhi in connection with one such fraud case in October 2022 and is out on bail. Puri police is taking steps for his bail cancellation.