Odisha economic offence wing cracks multi-state economic crime network

The EOW of Odisha Police claimed to have cracked a multi-state cyber/economic network allegedly involved in cheating people

The economic offence wing (EOW) of Odisha Police claimed to have cracked a multi-state cyber/economic network allegedly involved in cheating people.

The network was operating from Rajasthan, EOW DIG JN Pankaj said on Tuesday.

The DIG said that two persons identified as Mahmud Khan and Munfed Khan have been arrested with help of the police of the desert state.

They were brought to Odisha on five-days remand after being produced before ACJM, Ramgarh, Alwar, Rajasthan. The group, as revealed so far, has opened nearly 2,000 mule accounts in different parts of the country mainly in Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar and Assam, Pankaj said.

EOW also arrested one local accused identified as Anil Khiller from Baisinga area in Odisha's Mayurbhanj district who used to supply the SIM to the scamsters in Rajasthan. He has procured and sent at least 1,200 SIM cards to these scamsters, the EOW official said.

Earlier, the EOW had registered a case on the allegation of opening mule accounts with Indian Post Payment Bank (IPPB) in the name of different innocent/rustic persons especially in backward Nabarangpur district of Odisha by giving the impression that the account holders would get monetary benefits under different government schemes through these accounts but these accounts were used for illegal money transactions in various cyber crime without the knowledge of the actual account holders, the EOW said in a statement.

Investigation revealed that some local youths of Nabarangpur in criminal conspiracy with some scamsters of Rajasthan have created hundreds of mule accounts with Indian Post Payment Bank (IPPB) by using Aadhaar, PAN, photographs of innocent villagers, but these accounts were being latched with different SIM numbers so provided by the fraudsters operating from Rajasthan, it said.

As a result, any transaction carried out through these accounts was being intimated to the fraudsters, who were managing the phones with given SIM numbers.

"During investigation, five local accused were earlier arrested in the case. They disclosed that they were opening the mule accounts in the locality for the fraudsters in Rajasthan who were paying them Rs 2,000 per account," the EOW said, adding that based on the clue obtained from the arrested persons and by analysing different telephone numbers and bank account statements, the agency arrested Mahmud Khan and Munfed Khan from Alwar, Rajasthan.

Initial investigation suggests that Mahmud Khan received at least Rs 62 lakh remitted through the mule accounts fraudulently opened with IPPB, Nabarangpur, the DIG said.

Apart from this (IPPB account) angle, the fraudsters were illegally procuring SIMs from different sources/ states to be used in this scam, he said, adding that they were targeting the people in backward regions of Odisha, West Bengal and Bihar.