Online cheating racket busted, 5 held from Rajasthan

PTI, Nov 16, 2021, 7:12 PM IST

New Delhi: The Delhi Police’s Cyber Cell in a joint operation with the Pune Police busted an online cheating racket, with the arrest of five men from Rajasthan, officials said on Tuesday.

The accused were identified as H Meena (23), AK Meena (22), BL Meena (32), R Meena (23), and HM Meena (23), they said.

Police said the matter came to light after a resident of Pune filed a police complaint.

The complainant said she gives online tuition for which she gets fees through Google Pay.

On November 11, Muskan Meena, one of the participants, contacted the victim through Instagram and asked about fee payment.

The complainant told her that the fee is Rs 1,800 per month but the accused sent a screenshot of payment of Rs 18,000 to her and asked her to refund the excess amount of Rs 16,200, which was paid by mistake.

Without checking her bank account, the complainant returned the excess amount to the accused via Google Pay and later realized that she was cheated.

Muskan Meena had told the complainant that she lived in Dwarka, Delhi.

The Pune Police had contacted the Delhi Police’s Cyber Crime Unit for assistance and on verification, the address was found to be fake, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber Cell) KPS Malhotra said.

”The technical inquiry revealed that the persons were operating from Jaipur, Rajasthan. The deputed team on the basis of technical inquiry and manual intelligence identified and apprehended the five suspected persons who were later arrested by the Pune Police,” he said.

During interrogation, accused persons disclosed that they had created fake Instagram profiles.

They used to visit shopping pages on Instagram and after taking the screenshots of the product, asked the sellers its price through messages, the officer said.

”Then they sought the Google Pay number of the victim and sent fake messages of the paid amount which used to be much higher than the amount quoted. After that, they asked the victim to return the excess amount which was sent by mistake,” Malhotra said.

The accused were produced before a Delhi court on Tuesday for transit remand to Pune.