Two arrested for duping people of Rs 50 lakh

Two persons, including a mechanical engineer, have been arrested for allegedly duping people of Rs 50 lakh by debiting money from the victims bank accounts to their e-wallets after getting details by posing as Reserve Bank of India officials, police said today.
Vikas Jha, 25, and Ashutosh, 23, have been arrested and it has been found that they had cheated various people to the tune of Rs 50 lakh, DCP (South) Ishwar Singh said.
On December 17 last, an RK Puram resident SK Nair told police that he had lodged a complaint on www.Complaintboard.In for non-issuance of cheque book against his bank account in Andhra Bank.

"Following his complaint, he received a call where a man introduced himself as an RBI official and asked for his bank account number and details of his debit card. When Nair shared the details, he received an SMS about Rs 1.57 lakh being debited from his account," Singh said.
During probe, it was found that the amount of Rs 1.57 lakh was transferred to various e-wallets like Paytm, Free Charge, The Mobile Wallet and UDIO.
Police obtained the mobile numbers of accused persons, call detail records and developed criminal intelligence to get clues about the culprits.

"Police zeroed in on various e-wallet accounts such as paytm, freecharge, the mobile wallet and UDIO in which the money was transferred," he said, adding the technical investigation led police to Jha.

"To trace him, records of around 200 mobile phones, details of 50 handsets, around 40 e-wallet records were scanned.
"It was found that he used to move around various seven- star and five-star hotels in Delhi and Noida," he added.
On December 31, Jha's movement was noticed around Hyatt Hotel, following which a trap was laid and Vikas and his associate Ashutosh were apprehended, he said.
During interrogation, the accused told police they used to get data of people from various online portals. They then used to call them to get their bank account details and transfer the money into their e-wallets.

"They disclosed that they used to spend money on shopping through online portals and sell those articles through online portals. They have sold around 10 high-end phones like Apple 7, five scooties, etc. Through portals like OLX, Amazon, Flipkart, etc." he added.
Ashutosh is a mechanical engineer and had been conning people this way for the last three years, he said.