The Delhi police have arrested seven persons who allegedly cheated more than 2,100 people pan India of more than ₹4 crore on the pretext of selling goods online, said officials.
Out of the seven, four have been arrested from Delhi and three from Bihar. The accused had been operating the racket for the last two years through a website named “Family Help For Web Solutions”. Rohit Meena, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Shahdara district) said the accused were directly linked with more than 2,100 complaints and 67 FIRs across the country, till date.
On October 7, Vijay Pahwa filed a complaint of cheating by a person whom he had contacted to buy an electric scooter from an online website named “energy.simpleone.online”. “Pahwa paid ₹1.15 lakh to them. Later the accused stopped responding to him and the complainant understood that he was duped. Following a written complaint, the cyber police of Shahdara lodged an FIR and started the investigation,” said the DCP.
Cyber teams collected various details which first led to the arrest of Raja, Vikas, Ansari and Yadav from Karala village in northwest Delhi earlier this week. Their interrogation led to the arrest of the other three from Warisaliganj near Nawada in Bihar, the police said.
Fake portals
The DCP (Shahdara) told The Hindu that the four accused allegedly used to create fake websites of popular companies which were “sold” to fraudsters at high rates to cheat people.
“Interrogation of these accused led us to more raids and further three men were arrested — Bihari Paswan (22), Ajeet Kumar Paswan (23), and Kanhaiya Kumar Mahto (19) — from Bihar. We came to know that Ajeet and Bihari were ‘calling agents’ while Kanhaiya used to settle cheated amounts by withdrawing it through ATMs,” the DCP said.
The ‘agents’ used to call people and trap them into buying products online, the police said.
The cyber wing said some members who were still roaming free would be arrested soon.
The police recovered 11 mobile phones, more than 100 SIM cards issued on fake identifications, three laptops, four cheque books and five ATM cards.
