Delhi Police busts sextortion, cyberfraud rackets, 6 held

New Delhi, Jun 3 (PTI) The Delhi Police has busted a sextortion and cyber fraud racket, spanning across multiple states, and have arrested six people in the case, officials said on Tuesday.

According to the police, a money trail of over Rs 5 crore has been identified by different teams of Crime Branch.

"On May 24, a tip-off was received regarding the movement of a consignment suspected to contain synthetic bank account kits in New Ashok Nagar area. These kits were reportedly being used in various high-tech crimes such as sextortion, cyber fraud, banking scams, debit/credit card cloning, etc," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Aditya Gautam said.

It was found that the kits were to be delivered and distributed near the Mayur Vihar Phase-1 Extension.

A team was formed and an operation was carried out, following which three people, who were in possession of the consignment, were arrested, the DCP said.

"The accused were identified as Ujjawal Pandey (30), Gaurav Barua (24) and Yug Sharma (19). Synthetic bank account kits, pre-activated SIM cards, forged bank documents, debit/credit cards linked to dummy or fraudulent accounts, and mobile devices for real-time transaction control were recovered from them," the DCP said.

These items collectively formed called synthetic financial identity allowing cybercriminals to operate untraceable, modular shadow banking systems.

Later, a raid was conducted at their instance at an illegal call centre involved in fraudulent bank loan schemes which was functioning in Mundka and seven people were apprehendedm, the DCP added.

Among the apprehended individuals, Dilshad Ali emerged as a key operative. Investigations revealed that Ali, along with his associate Amit, was running a fake call centre providing bank loans. Ali acted as the team leader, while Amit, who is absconding, was identified as the owner of the operation. Amit’s role involved the procurement and facilitation of fraudulent bank accounts and fake SIM cards, which were further handed over to Ali for use in the scam.

The modus operandi of the call centre was to defraud people by offering fake bank loans. Initially, the callers under Ali's direction contacted potential victims offering them attractive loan deals. After gaining the victim's trust, the caller would request identification and other personal documents. The victim was then asked to make a payment through a QR code scanner, under the pretext of file processing fees, said the DCP.

After the payment was received, the victim's follow-up messages and calls were ignored. The fraudsters would then switch off their mobile devices and change their contact numbers, effectively cutting off all communication.

During investigation, another raid conducted in the New Ashok Nagar area where four other accused were apprehended and an organised sextortion racket was busted, DCP Gautam said.

They would send friend requests on social media and obtain victim's mobile number. Later, they would initiate a video call, during which they would stream obscene videos, secretly recording the victim's screen and reactions using screen recording tools. The recorded content was then used to blackmail the victim under threats of publicly circulating the video on social media platforms, thereby coercing them into transferring money, the DCP said.

Further investigation in the matter is underway, police added. PTI BM HIG