New Delhi: Cyber crime is increasingly becoming rampant in today’s age of virtual world. With people increasingly opting for digital modes of payment, the criminals have also devised new & innovative ways of deceiving and defrauding innocent people. Fraudsters often connect to gullible people by connecting with them via multimedia means including e-mails, phone calls & WhatsApp messages.

In a similar case in Uttarakhand, the cyber criminals cheated a woman of a whopping Rs 66 lakh while she was trying to purchase a puppy online for gifting it to her daughter on latter’s birthday.

Mrs Arti Rawat, a resident of Dehradun, while searching for a puppy online as birthday gift to her daughter came across some people who contacted her on mobile while impersonating as dog breeder. They had dug out her mobile number via Just Dial. They called her and cooked up many stories as to how they will facilitate the entire process without any hassles. While sealing the deal, they extracted a whopping Rs 66,49,600/- from the woman as part of booking amount, transport and insurance fees.

After the woman got to know that she was duped of Rs 66 lakh, she complained to the police and a criminal case was filed. An investigating team was formed under Cyber Police Inspector Devendra Nabhiyal to apprehend the culprits who tricked the woman of her money.

A foreign national belonging to Cameroon has been arrested by the cops. Among the items that have been recovered from their custody includes 4 mobile phones, 1 laptop, 5 SIM cards, 4 ATM cards and over 36,000 cash.

An amount of about 13 lakh rupees has also been frozen in the accounts of SBI & CANARA BANK branches.

Uttarakhand Police said that a large scale racket is involved in carrying out such online crime. It also briefed the press of such racket involving 3 Nigerians in a recent case that was cracked by cops.

Nilesh Anand Bharne, DIGP (cyber crime & STF) has lauded the police STF for busting the racket involving foreign nationals. Mr Bharne, a 2005 batch IPS officer recently took charge of DIG, law & order in the state and also additional charge of DIGP (cyber crime & STF).

Modus Operandi of cyber criminals:

The criminals had created a dummy website/advertisements for buying & selling of goods including animals. The criminal contacted the victim and cooked up false stories along with fake IDs to win customer’s confidence and trust. And, over a period of time, they duped the woman of Rs 66 lakhs with false documents, stories and promises.

The accused deceived the victim and drew the money in different bank accounts in 2 states – Maharashtra & Tripura. These bank accounts were running with fake ID proof and documents, probe revealed. Police was on look out for these accused and after 15 days of search operation in places like Bangalore & other cities, they got hold of the criminals. The accused were found to be withdrawing this money from their account via ATM machines in Bangalore.