Jamtara gang that duped 2,000 people busted; 21K SIMs seized

Karam Prakash

New Delhi, April 19

With the arrest of six persons and recovery of over 21,000 mobile SIM cards, the Delhi Police claim to have busted a syndicate based at Jamtara in Jharkhand that duped more than 2,000 people across the country by pretending to be the customer care staff of prominent banks.

The accused have been identified as Nizamudin Ansari, alias Nizam (23); Afroz Alam (23), Amir Ansari (22), Sarfaraz Ansari (22), Afroz Ansari (22), all residents of Jamtara, and Nasim Malitya (31) of West Bengal’s Murshidabad. The action came following a complaint by a man, currently residing in Dubai, from whose account Rs 10 lakh was fraudulently withdrawn.

Incidentally, Jamtara is known as the “phishing capital” of India. The SIM cards are learnt to have been procured by misusing the Aadhaar details of unaware common people.

Adopting a unique modus operandi, the cybercriminals would pay huge sums to Google, Facebook and Instagram to post online the advertisement of their fake customer care websites, which they showed were of reputed banks. They would trick gullible customers into uploading their bank details onto sham websites.

The police said the accused would create fake “mirror websites”, which appeared to be a true copy of the authentic websites of banks and e-commerce companies. On these mirror websites, the fraudsters would put up their contact numbers. The police said the accused would trick the customers into sharing their mobile phone number linked with bank accounts and siphon money by asking them to follow a fraudulent algorithm.

The police said they would also question Google and Facebook authorities on how the fake websites were listed on top in Google search without verification and merely by paying money. “The fraudsters paid Google in lakhs to put up their fake websites on top of the search list. People sometimes overlook the minor differences in these mirror websites and end up sharing their bank account details,” said an investigation officer. Whenever any customer would call up on the fake number, the fraudsters would ask him to install a mobile app, using which they would siphon off money, the officer said. Asked how Aadhaar cards was misused, the officer explained whenever a SIM card is bought, a customer has to share biometric details.

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• The accused duped more than 2,000 people across many states in the country
• They pretended to be the customer care staff of prominent banks
• Posted ads of fake ‘mirror websites’ on Google, Facebook, Instagram