THURSDAY, 26 OCTOBER 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The cyber police station of Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF) has busted a gang that has 913 national linkages and 46 FIRs registered against it in different Police stations of the country. The arrested gang members are also connected with Nigerian cyber criminals. They have been identified as Deepu Verma (28), Daleep Giri (25), Ramnaresh Lal (23) and Shivam Tiwari (22) who belong to Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich and were arrested from there on Tuesday, said the STF senior superintendent of police Ayush Agrawal. This gang has reportedly duped a man belonging to Haridwar’s Laksar of Rs 15.17 lakh in the name of sending gifts from a foreign country. They befriended the victims via social media platforms by posing as foreign citizens, luring them to send expensive gifts and fraudulently extorting money through various transactions in the name of various charges to get the parcels released from the airport. They were duping people across the country and are also associated with Nigerian cyber frauds and have confessed to opening fake bank accounts for them in Delhi/NCR, said Agrawal. The accused committed the crime by using fake SIMs, social media profiles and fake accounts. Agrawal said that the STF’s cyber crime police arrested the accused after collecting digital and physical evidence against them on Tuesday. The STF also recovered various items including one laptop, five passbooks from different banks, 13 debit cards from different banks, five cheque books, one Aadhar card biometric device, an Aadhar card and a PAN card. The SSP has appealed to the public not to fall prey to any kind of lucrative opportunities, fake websites and unknown opportunities to double the amount and book tickets. He said, “I appeal to everyone not to invest in fake investment offers like YouTube likes and subscribes and Telegram based investment website offers which are the methods being used widely to con people. Avoid befriending unknown persons on social media and do not make any kind of transactions with them.”
