The Bharatpur Civil Line police on Thursday conducted searches at different locations in Giridih in connection with the first-of-its kind cyber crime money laundering case, in which conmen based in a remote block of the Giridih, have robbed gullible people off their money, officials said.
They said multiple teams of the Bharatpur police raided locations at Bengabad in Giridih district and adjoining areas as part of the evidence gathering exercise in this probe.
The residence of Ruplal Mandal of Chupwadih village, an accused in the Bharatpur police station's FIR, at several places are being searched, they said. According to reports the Rajasthan police had registered an FIR, last month as part of its first-of-its kind criminal case aimed to choke cyber banking fraudsters.
It had filed the FIR against Ruplal Mandal and his associates, whom the agency has charged with duping several people in the last few years by obtaining their vital banking information over phone after posing as bank officials.
These banking crimes, perpetrated over phone by using stolen e-database, have seen a phenomenal rise in the last few years prompting banks to ask their customers not to share their personal account details with anyone.
"It is alleged that these cyber criminals and their associates, sitting in the remote town of Giridih, siphoned off huge amount of money of bank account holders and have amassed assets worth about Rs 50 lakh each. The Giridih police have also registered multiple FIRs against them,” said an offcial.
The Rajasthan police complaint stated that these alleged conmen and their associates used to "make random calls to bank account holders" residing in any part of the country and threatened them that their accounts would be suspended if they did not share their confidential banking credentials, said Arup Chaudhay Inspector of Bharatpur police station.
"On getting the customer’s PIN and OTP after conning the account holder they would siphon off the money to e-wallets connected with some account that they had created with banks using fake KYC details, added Chaudhay.
Cyber DySP, Giridih, Sandip Suman, said that the criminals were using various SIM cards, which they used to dispose of after committing the crime and making calls to victims by introducing themselves as officials belonging to banks and regulatory bodies like the RBI and among others.
Being the epicentre of such crimes, Giridih and Jamtara, a small town in Jharkhand, has earned the sobriquet of being the 'cyber crime capital of India'.
“Scamsters based in few of its neighbouring locations like, Dumka, Deoghara, Bokaro among others are also fast catching up with these e-crimes. This brings disrepute to the entire state," added the Cyber DySP.