Bhubaneswar: Commissionerate Police has arrested five persons, including the mastermind with MTech degree, for allegedly duping a government officer of more than Rs 36 lakh in Bhubaneswar.
Speaking to media persons on the arrest on Tuesday, Police Commissioner Sanjib Panda said the officer of Odisha government serving in Bhubaneswar, in his complaint filed in Cyber police station on May 14, stated that he received a phone call from a person, who identified himself as an employee of Fedex courier service. The caller said the officer’s Aadhaar card was used in sending a packet to Taiwan and an officer of Crime Brnach, Mumbai would talk to him.
After some time, the officer received a call from another person, who identified himself as Machhumari Chintibabu, a Crime Branch officer from Mumbai. Machhumari told the officer that the latter would face criminal charges for using the Aadhaar card in the courier and demanded money to hush up the matter.
Out of fear for arrest and social stigma, the officer agreed to the deal and transferred Rs 36,34,400 online to the account of the so called Crime Branch officer. After making the payment, the officer realised that he had become a victim of cyber fraud and filed the complaint.
Following investigation, police arrested Denzo alias Boss of Tripura. During questioning Denzo revealed the details about his accomplices and the police arrested Machhumari of Andhra Pradesh, who is a MTech degree holder. Later, others involved in the racket including Seikh Tejuddin of Andhra Pradesh, James of Assam and Jiten Kaipeng of Tripura.
The police have also frozen Rs 12 lakh and 1700 Crypto dollars in the bank accounts of the accused. Besides, two laptops, 56 ATM cards, 20 mobile phones, 30 SIM cards and several passbooks and cheque books have been seized from their possession.
The Commissioner said, “The five cyber frauds used to operate from Bengaluru and were coming to Bhubaneswar frequently to target the victims. Then they were calling up the identified persons. If any of them got trapped in their plan, they used to threaten him and extract money.”
