The North Division cybercrime police on Friday arrested a gang of eight who were running a “courier racket“ online. The police have seized ₹13.17 lakh, 11 mobile phones, and 148 bank accounts from them.
According to the police, the accused, identified as Waseem N., Habeebullah M., Nizamuddin, Mushriff Khan, B. Nurulla Khan, Mohammed Umar, Syed Hussain, and Syed Ahmed, posing as courier executives, called random people and threatened them that a parcel was found with banned items in their name and that they had alerted ‘Mumbai crime branch officials’ for a probe. A few minutes later, one of the accused posing as a Mumbai crime branch police officer would call them and threaten to book a case against them for smuggling contraband. On the pretext of investigation, the accused would take access to the bank accounts of the victims and transfer the money.
Using this modus operandi, the accused duped a homemaker at Yeshwantpur and forced her to transfer ₹1.08 crore from her account. Based on the complaint, a team of police, led by DCP North Division Saidulu Adavath and inspector Shivaratna S., tracked down the account transaction and found that the accused had withdrawn cash at a private bank branch in Davangere.
The police obtained CCTV camera footage to identify the accused and arrested them. Investigations revealed that apart from two cases reported in the North Division, the accused were involved in over 75 criminal cases registered around the country.
