Friday, 15 December 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The Cyber Crime Police Station of Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF) has arrested a cyber fraudster wanted in five states from Rajasthan who is allegedly involved in cyber scams of more than Rs two crores. The accused identified as Narendra Dukhiya (24), a resident of Rajasthan’s Nagaur district is accused of allegedly duping a person of Rs 19.34 lakh in the name of providing them work from home of liking and subscribing to YouTube channels, posting Google reviews, and leaving hotel reviews. He is also suspected of being a part of a gang. According to the deputy superintendent of police of STF’s Cyber Crime Police Station Ankush Mishra, the accused used to initially pay for these tasks to further increase the victim’s trust.
Once the tasks are completed, victims are required to share screenshots of their activities with the criminals on WhatsApp which are later used to dupe others. Victims are then provided with more tasks to maintain their involvement in the scam. After this, victims are asked to join a Telegram channel to claim their supposed salary. Scammers get victims’ bank account details during the process. They make new fake investment offers and introduce schemes to entice victims to deposit money. After victims have invested a significant amount, the promised salary payments suddenly stop. The victims are then instructed to transfer large sums of money to random UPI IDs and bank accounts for purported withdrawal of funds. Scammers divert some of the funds to dummy or fake crypto exchanges, said DSP.
He said that the STF team came to know about the accused after investigating transaction details given by the victim. He said that the accused has confessed to committing the crime by using fake SIMs, ID cards and fake accounts for the said work. He also told authorities that the Telegram channel they use to dupe people is being operated from Dubai. He said that he also invested the scammed amount into P2P Crypto trading. The DSP appealed to the people to not get lured by lucrative job offers and to refrain from sharing personal details with unknown people on social media platforms.
