The Dehradun police have arrested three men from Jharkhand who were involved in online fraud carried out in Dehradun. Addressing the media, the deputy inspector general and Dehradun senior superintendent of police Arun Mohan Joshi said that on February 19, Sahastradhara Road resident Teena Gupta had filed a written complaint with the police. She had stated that a day ago, a person called her identifying himself as PayTM company representative talking about installing a software for KYC.
The person also took her account and debit card details after which he withdrew Rs 4.45 lakh from her account. The dedicated core team formed by Joshi for tackling online frauds put the phone numbers provided by the complainant under surveillance.
This revealed that the last location of the mobile phones was in Jamtara district of Jharkhand while the phone ID was from 24 Pargana district of West Bengal. The team also learnt about some fake PayTM wallets being used by the suspects, the IDs of which were traced to Lucknow and Delhi.
Following this, police teams left for Jharkhand, West Bengal, Delhi and Lucknow and kept the numbers under surveillance. The police then learnt of a new number being used by the suspects. This number was registered in the name of Sharid Ansari from Devghar district of Jharkhand. The police team reached Devghar district and collected information about Sharid and the address.
Informants tipped off the police about Sharid and two others being present in Badiya area of the district. Acting on the information, the police arrested Sharid along with Tanvir Alam and Nabuvat Ansari. The police also found mobile phone and SIM card used for the fraud along with cash from the accused. After being presented in the court at Devghar, the trio was brought to Dehradun on transit remand.
During interrogation, the gang leader Sharid said that earlier he used to work at a hotel in West Bengal. However, he was impressed by the lifestyle of the many people involved in online fraud near his village Badiya.
Hatching a plan with his two neighbours, he said that they used to buy SIM cards from West Bengal to commit the fraud.