Gang involved in pan-India online frauds busted, 5 arrested

LUCKNOW: With the arrest of five persons from near Bharwara crossing, Chinhat, police claimed to have busted a gang involved in pan-India frauds on a popular e-commerce portal, on Friday.

Police also recovered 46 cell phones, 561 SIM cards, 48 rubber stamps, 34 stamp papers, a fourwheeler, 17 ATM cards, eight bank passbooks, five check books, six Aadhaar cards, three laptops and various computer parts from them.

The arrested were identified as Kumar Sahu of Chhattisgarh who was staying at Chhota Bharwara in Lucknow, Pushpendra Tewari and Aditya Singh of Lucknow, Manoj Yadav of Jaunpur, and Avinash Kumar Yadav of Mau.

They had duped people of around Rs 1 crore over the past five years.

Speaking about their modus operandi, senior superintendent of police Deepak Kumar said, “The gang used to post on OLX (e-commerce platform) about iPhones and other costly items available for sale at very low prices.”

“After getting money transferred from buyers in bank accounts opened on fake IDs, they withdrew the money and closed the accounts. The ‘buyers’ never got the products. Meanwhile, the fraudsters dumped the SIM cards they had used while speaking to targets on phone,” said Kumar.

He said as the products were offered at very low prices, people easily fell into their trap. “At times, the gang sent cheap / duplicate versions of the products they had advertised,” said the SSP.

He said Sahu ran operations from Lucknow, while Avinash operated from swanky hotels in New Delhi. “Sahu also managed to get a palatial house built in Gomti Nagar extension with the ill-gotten money,” he said.

“Tewari opened bank accounts with help of fake IDs, Manoj Yadav procured SIM cards of different cellular operators again using fake IDs, and Aditya Singh advertised products on OLX. He operated from ‘Samriddhi Bhawan’ at Chhota Bharwara, Chinat,” said Kumar.

“Avinash was the gang leader. He had unsuccessfully contested the last Vidhan Sabha election from Mubarakpur assembly constituency in Azamgarh. There too, he had duped several people and fled away after the election,” he said.

Station officer Chinhat Raj Kumar Singh, inspector Ram Bahadur Pal and their team members were instrumental in busting the racket.