Interstate cybercrime racket busted in Punjab, 38 arrested

Phagwara (Punjab), Sep 19 (PTI) Punjab Police has busted an interstate cyber fraud racket and arrested 38 people from a resort during a raid, officials said on Friday.

The raid was conducted jointly by teams of Kapurthala Cyber Cell and city police station, Phagwara, on Thursday night, they said.

The arrested accused, including some women, were taken to Kapurthala in a bus. The accused belong to Punjab, New Delhi, Nagaland, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal, Haryana, Odisha, Jharkhand and Maharashtra, police said.

According to police sources, the group was defrauding people in the United States and Canada on the pretext of offering software solutions. They would hack electronic devices of unsuspecting people.

One of the accused, who allegedly ran the racket, leased the resort premises and engaged a few people to manage the illegal call centre, the sources said.

According to an FIR registered in the early hours of Friday, the arrests were made under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), including cheating, and the Information Technology Act.

Police recovered 40 laptops, 67 mobile phones and Rs 10 lakh cash during the raid. PTI COR SUN SMV DIV DIV