Saturday, 25 MAY 2024 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF) arrested three fraudsters from Rajasthan on charges of holding a senior citizen of Dehradun in digital arrest for 24 hours and duping him of Rs 1.13 crore. The accused duped the victim by claiming to be officials from the Customs department and the crime branch bureau from Mumbai. This is Uttarakhand’s first case of digital arrest, the STF senior superintendent of police Ayush Agrawal said. He said that the fraudsters posed as officials and informed the victim about a parcel containing illegal drugs and passports sent in his name and how a transaction of Rs three crore had been done through his bank accounts. Considering the seriousness of the case, the SSP constituted a team under the deputy superintendent of police Akunsh Mishra to investigate this incident. The team started the investigation and the technical analysis of the mobile numbers and information of the bank received from the victim revealed culprits’ association with Rajasthan. Considering this, teams were sent there to investigate the leads who finally arrested three men from Kota in Rajasthan after gathering evidence against them. The STF also recovered five mobile phones besides several Aadhar cards, and SIM cards among others. The accused were identified as Rakesh (30), Deepak Lakshkar (26) and Asif Ali (27). The arrested accused have confessed to scamming people across the country by accusing them of money laundering and drug smuggling. They even send them fake notices to make the whole process more believable to them which helps them to scam, people easily. Their gang members also allegedly run the scam from Dubai. The STF is investigating it, Agrawal said. He said that this is the first case of digital arrest in the State but such scams are rapidly increasing. He said that if anybody receives such a call, they should not panic and contact the local authority rather than believing people in fear and under pressure. Such criminals use people’s fear to scare them more and extort money from them. If anybody gets such calls, they should immediately contact the police or cyber crime police station, he added.
