Two ‘Missing’ Engineering Students Among 3 Held For Cyber Fraud In Odisha

Bhubaneswar: Three persons, including two engineering students, have been arrested by Ainthapali police in Sambalpur district in connection with a Rs 2 lakh online fraud.

The two are among the four students of a private engineering college in Bhubaneswar and they reportedly had been missing since February 11.

While investigating the missing case, Commissionerate Police here traced their phones at Sambalpur and found that the Ainthapali police were questioning three of them for their alleged links with Jamtara gang.

Those arrested have been identified as Rahmat Ansari (22) of Malandi village in Deoghar district of Jharkhand, Vishal Pandey (21) of Janta Market Station Road in East Singbhum district of Jharkhand and Sekhar Gautam (21) of Sikandra Road in Jamui district of Bihar.

Following their arrest, Rs 1.13 lakh cash, nine mobile phones, ATM cards of different banks and a laptop were seized from their possession.

THE FRAUD

According to police sources, one Saroj Dash (45) of Anguliapada under Ainthapali police limits had applied for a personal loan online on February 5. The accused offered to help him complete the formalities and fraudulently diverted Rs 2 lakh credited to the applicant’s bank account.

During questioning, they confessed to the fraud and told the police that they had distributed Rs 2 lakh among themselves.

MODUS OPERANDI

The accused used to allure unsuspecting people by putting up lucrative ads and post on different sites. They made fraudulent transactions after collecting personal data from the callers.

To trap people, they also hosted their numbers in the customer care list of different online sites. The SIM cards used by them were procured from black markets in Kolkata, the sources added.