Coimbatore cybercrime police bust Madhya Pradesh-based group involved in courier scam; three arrested

Coimbatore police bust Madhya Pradesh-based gang behind courier scams, cheating victims of crores; urge public vigilance.

Making a major breakthrough in cases of courier scams reported in Coimbatore, the city cybercrime police busted a Madhya Pradesh-based gang that is believed to have cheated hundreds of gullible victims from various parts of the country of several crores of rupees.

A special team headed by cybercrime inspector P.A. Arun arrested Ravikumar Sharma, 23, Mukul Chandel, 24, and Anil Jatav, 24, all from Guna in Madhya Pradesh, with the support of the local police on July 4. They were brought to Coimbatore on July 6 and were remanded in judicial custody.

The trio came under the radar of the cybercrime police after they cheated C. George, 75, of Ram Nagar in Coimbatore of ₹67 lakh in June. As per the complaint lodged by Mr. George, he was contacted by a person, who posed as police officer Vinay Kumar Choubey from Bandra station in Mumbai on June 8.

Mr. George had received a message, which said that he had been named as an accused in a case after one fraudster, namely Raj Kundra, used his Aadhaar card for a bank account and a SIM card for cheating. The next day, another person posing as Choubey’s superior Akash Kulhari contacted Mr. George and told him that they had obtained a warrant from the Supreme Court to arrest him.

To evade the arrest, the complainant was asked to pay a fine and he transferred ₹67 lakh from one of his bank accounts to a bank account shared by the unknown person. However, the fraudster contacted him again and asked him to transfer more money.

As the complainant approached another bank to withdraw ₹10 lakh from a fixed deposit account, the bank manager enquired him about the need. The complainant narrated the entire incident to the bank manager, who advised him to report the incident to the cybercrime police. A case was registered on June 12.

The police team seized laptops, mobile phones, SIM cards and bank passbooks that were used by the three accused, who were traced to Guna. According to the police, a bank account used by the accused for cheating was involved in similar cheating cases registered by 52 cybercrime police stations in 12 States.