The crime branch of the Jammu and Kashmir Police today claimed to have busted an interstate gang of online fraudsters who allegedly used to dupe people by pretending to be representatives of banks and insurance companies. Seven persons have been arrested.
“We received a complaint from one Vijay Kumar Gupta of Laxmi Vihar, Kathua, who complained that he was duped of Rs 36 lakh by a few people who pretended to be from an insurance company where he had made some investment in 2009,” Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), crime, Mubassir Latifi told mediapersons here.
The SSPsaid the accused had made several telephone calls to the victim and informed him that his policy had lapsed and he needed to deposit some money to revive it.
“He paid the money and by the time he realised that he was duped of his hard-earned money, Gupta had already deposited more than Rs 36 lakh in different accounts of the accused who introduced themselves to be employees of the insurance company,” he added.
Latifi said a team of the crime branch investigated the case and was sent to Delhi where the case was cracked and the accused arrested.
“The crime branch has also been successful in recovering an amount of Rs 15 lakh and would recover more in the coming days,” he said.
The SSP said Gupta had bought a Kotak life insurance policy in 2009 and had paid its premium till 2012. Since 2013 he got caught into this net and only realised when he had already deposited Rs 36 lakh.
“He received several threats on his life from the callers and when the case was registered our team led by Inspector Parvez Sajjad went to New Delhi and Noida and arrested the accused, including three masterminds,” Latifi said.
He added that they were expected to get more leads as the investigation was still in the preliminary stage. “We are expected to make more arrests in upcoming days,” the SSP said.
Those arrested have been identified as Chander Shaker Kandpal, alias Sharad Kumar of Jaipur, Rajasthan; Shiv Kumar, alias Raj Kumar Sharma of Noida; Anil Kumar of Uttarakhand; Arun Dass, alias Deepak Singal of New Delhi; Rajeev Tanwar of New Delhi; Sachin Bhardwaj, alias Krishanan of New Delhi; and Pushkar Chaudhary, alias Baskar of Haryana.
Latifi said the arrest of these fraudsters was a big success for the crime branch, Jammu, but many more vital areas were also under investigation.
“In the past few years, the Jammu crime branch had received around 30 complaints, including cyber crime cases where unidentified callers after alluring the complainants had taken away their hard-earned money through online transactions,” Latifi said.
He appealed to the public at large that “come what may” all such unsolicited calls be avoided ab inito and under no circumstances, the personal details, account numbers, PIN codes, ATM card numbers, credit card numbers, CVV codes and internet banking passwords be shared with anybody.
