Nellore police bust seven-member cybercriminal gang

Nellore police arrest cyber criminals who scammed woman of Rs. 2.46 crore; seized cash, phones, cards, machines, and documents.

Nellore police arrested a gang of seven cybercriminals, who reportedly duped a woman of ₹2.46 crore in an online investment scam. They seized ₹2 lakh in cash, 29 smartphones, 21 feature phones, 57 debit cards, Wi-Fi router, printer, laptop, card cutting machine, lamination machine, several passbooks, SIM cards, diaries and Aadhaar cards from the accussed.

Addressing the media on Saturday, SPSR Nellore Superintendent of Police (SP) G. Krishna Kanth said that a letter was sent to different banks to freeze money amounting to a total of nearly ₹39 lakh in the accounts of the accused. Among the arrested persons, Gogaram, Hemanth, Kailash, Nagaram and Ramaram are from Rajasthan, while Ramisetty Veereswara Rao and M. Ravi are from Nellore.

“Hoping to earn double income, a woman from Nellore had deposited several amounts totalling ₹2.46 crore in an online investment. Later, when she tried to transfer the money to another account, she realised that she had been cheated and filed a complaint at Chinna Bazaar police station,” the SP said.

Special teams were formed under the leadership of Chinna Bazaar Circle Inspector (CI) Ch. Koteswara Rao and Cybercrime CI Venkateswarlu, and the accused were arrested at South Nellore railway station on April 25 (Friday) morning. A case was registered under Sections 318(4), 338, 336 (3), 340(2) read with 61 (2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and section 66(c)(d) of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2008.

Their modus operandi involved creating fake Aadhar and PAN cards, opening bank accounts and using them for cybercrimes. They obtain SIM cards through Digital-KYC from roadside sales points that do not require biometric verification. They approach bank officials and open current accounts using these fake documents.

The bank passbooks were sent to main accused Gogaram in Rajasthan through courier. The bank-linked phone numbers were used by installing the SMS APK file and all were connected to a laptop for easy access. He gave a salary of ₹20,000 per month, and commission of ₹1 lakh for opening a current account, and ₹20,000 for a savings account to the other accused persons.

The five accused from Rajasthan have so far opened 236 bank accounts with various fake IDs. 436 complaints have been raised on 36 of these accounts on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP).