Two men arrested for duping over 1,000 people on the pretext of linking Aadhaar cards

Two people have been arrested for allegedly duping over 1,000 people by persuading them to share confidential details on the pretext of linking their Aadhaar cards with their mobile numbers, police said on Friday.

The accused Alimuddin Ansari (27) was arrested from Ajmer while his associate Manoj Yadav (31) was arrested from Karol Bagh, they said.

Ansari -- the mastermind of the syndicate allegedly operated through multiple unorganized call centres in Jharkhand's Jamtara, Giridih, Deoghar, Dhanbad and West Bengal's Wardhman area, they added.

The matter came to light after police received a complaint from a resident of Dwarka Rakesh Gilani, who was duped of over Rs 4 lakh.

"First the accused used to call the victims posing as customer care executive of a telecom service provider or bank employee. Then they would ask the victim about their debit card details on the pretext of linking their Aadhaar number with their mobile number.

"Once the victim gave all the details, the accused would send them a message and ask them to forward it to the customer care. The accused told the victims that their mobile numbers will be deactivated for some time. Till the time the phone number of the victims were deactivated, the accused used to get a new SIM number activated," said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Dwarka) Anto Alphonse.

Subsequently, the accused got access to all the bank account details and other potential areas where mobile number is used to receive an OTP or other security passwords.

Within minutes, the accused used to make transactions through mobile banking without the victim's knowledge, the officer added.

The accused have transferred more than Rs 10 crore from various bank accounts, the DCP said.

During interrogation, Ansari also revealed that fake accounts were also outsourced to other cheaters at hefty commissions, the officer said.

Yadav was paid Rs 12,000 per account. Yadav targeted poor people and offered Rs 2,000 per account. He used to lure them to give their bank account details and changed the address.

The gang managed more than 1,100 bank accounts which were opened on fake addresses to transfer crores of cheated amount, the officer added.

Around 81 debit cards, 104 cheque books and 130 pass books of different bank accounts were recovered, the police said.

Efforts are being made to locate the associates of Ansari and also to obtain the details of bank accounts which were opened on fake addresses, they added.