The Anantapur police on November 24 (Friday) busted a cyber fraud racket involving transactions of ₹36 crore and arrested five persons hailing from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in this connection.
The five-member gang was allegedly involved in various crimes including luring gullible youth with high commissions for running subscriptions and giving ratings to fake web portals, online gaming, job frauds, OTP and part-time job frauds, Superintendent of Police K.K.N. Anburajan told the media.
The accused have been identified as Mohammed Sammad from Naidupeta and Venkatachalam from Venkatagiri in Tirupati district; Ajay Reddy from Singarayakonda inPrakasam district; Sandhya Rani from Anantapur; and Sandeep from Zaheerabad in Sangareddy district of Telangana.
Investigation revealed that the gang allegedly siphoned off money from bank accounts. “Special teams are searching for the kingpin of the racket, who is believed to be from North India. The arrested gang members had received ₹20 lakh as commission from the kingpin,” the SP said.
Mr. Anburajan said that the gang members were arrested after a thorough investigation into a case registered at Garladinne police station on November 15.
A youth, who studied ITI, lodged a police complaint alleging that he had lost about ₹2 lakh in the name of paying advances to avail of “high commissions”.
On September 21, the youth received a link on a social media platform for a part-time job which offered high commissions for posting reviews and adding subscriptions for fake web portals. The youth paid advances of ₹2 lakh at different levels. Initially, the youth was paid some commissions. But his ID was blocked later.
Dubai connection
The SP said the investigation by the cybercrime division revealed that the cyber fraud involved transactions of ₹36 crore done through 16 fake accounts. “The money siphoned off was withdrawn in Dubai,” Mr. Anburajan said.
