Two men have been arrested for allegedly posing as Reserve Bank of India (RBI) officials and duping people of around Rs 50 lakh. Deputy Commissioner of Police South Ishwar Singh said the accused have been identified as Vikas Jha (25) and Ashutosh (23).
They collected basic details about people such as their mobile numbers and addresses from various online portals. Then they would call them up and introduced themselves as officials from RBI. They would ask for their bank details such as account number, debit or credit card number and password. Once the victims gave the details, the accused would fraudulently transfer the cash to their online e-wallets.
Police have recovered cash of Rs 1,23,900, two laptops, 10 mobile phones, 39 SIM cards, one pen drive-16 GB and five Aadhar cards from their possession.
Police officials said a victim, SK Nair, a resident of sector 6 in RK Puram had reported that he had lodged a complaint for non-issuance of cheque book against his bank account in Andhra Bank. After lodging the complaint, he received a call on his mobile phone wherein the caller introduced himself as an RBI official and asked for his bank account number and details of his debit card. When he shared the details with him, he received a message on his phone stating a debit of
Rs 1,57, 000 from his bank account. A case under section 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) was registered at RK Puram Police station and investigation was taken up.
"It was told that the cheated amount of Rs 1, 57, 000 was transferred in various e-wallets like Paytm, Free Charge, The Mobile Wallet and UDIO. During investigation, the police team obtained mobile numbers of the culprits and developed criminal intelligence to get clues about them. In order to trace the accused Vikas Jha, records of around 200 mobile phones, other details of 50 handsets, around 40 e-wallet records scanned," said a senior police official.
The accused persons were allegedly moving around in different luxury hotels across Delhi and Noida, said police, adding that on December 31, Jha was noticed around Hyatt Hotel on the Ring Road and was nabbed with his associate Ashutosh.