Cops bust Rs 245 cr int’l cybercrime racket; 17 held

Gourab Neto, MP, 5 Dec 2024, Kolkata: In a major crackdown, an international cyber-crime racket was busted by the State Police involving at least Rs 245 crore. As many as 17 arrests have been made so far. 

According to the state police authorities, in June this year, a complaint was lodged at the Bidhannagar Cyber Crime Police Station alleging that about Rs 1.13 crore was siphoned off from the complainant’s bank account. 

While probing the case, cops of Bidhannagar Commissionerate found that the racket was operating from Dubai. Accordingly, the Cyber Crime wing of the State Police was involved and during a joint probe, police arrested 17 persons from Bengal and Bihar, including three masterminds of the racket. 

On Thursday, Hari Kishore Kusumakar, the Additional Director General (ADG) of the State Police Cyber Cell informed that the operations of this gang are spread in the Caribbean Island of Curacao, Dubai and Sri Lanka other than India. The modus operandi of the racket was mainly phishing. 

In this case, the complainant was convinced to download a fake application from a phishing website which looked like a well-known Indian wealth management company. Later the money was siphoned off from his bank account. 

For the fraudulent activities, the racket used to open an enormous number of mule bank accounts and procure fake SIM cards with International roaming facilities so that the OTPs could be received while sitting in Dubai.

After arranging the bank accounts and SIM cards the details used to be sent to Dubai. Mostly, online casino and investment fraud was the style of this gang. To mislead the police, the money used to be sent in several bank accounts in Caribbean Island and Sri Lanka where the wealth used to be invested in online casinos. 

Later the money generated from the casinos used to be converted into crypto currency and again sent back to Dubai. On Thursday, during a Press conference, Kusumakar said: “While checking on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP) using the details of the mobile numbers and bank accounts, we have found that the racket was active in almost every part of our country. 

As of now, it was found that 29 states are affected involving about Rs 245 crore. Also as per the NCRP portal, 1530 complaints are registered in 894 police stations across the country and 704 mule bank accounts have been traced so far. 

Among the three masterminds of the racket, one is a chartered accountant from Siliguri. Further probe is on to find out more details about the racket. 

https://www.millenniumpost.in/bengal/pm-takes-mamatas-inputs-as-india-eyes-diplomatic-breakthrough-with-bangladesh-589587?infinitescroll=1