Arrested Persons (Maalaimalar)
CHENNAI: A complaint by a resident of Puducherry has led to the unearthing of a nationwide cyberfraud racket. Four men allegedly involved in the racket were recently arrested by the Puducherry Cyber Crime Police in Bengaluru, according to a Maalai Malar report.
Ramesh Kumar from Laspettai in Puducherry was defrauded of Rs 17,71,000 in an online scam that had promised employment in Canada. Based on his complaint, the Puducherry Cyber Crime Police registered a case and conducted an investigation.
They found that a gang of north Indian men living in Bengaluru, pretending to be LPG cylinder delivery agents, were the ones behind the scam.
A police team led by Puducherry Cyber Crime Inspector Keerthi arrested the four men from Bengaluru. Three of them were identified as Subham Sharma (29), Niraj Surjar (29) from Madhya Pradesh, and Raj (28) from Uttarakhand.
Further investigation revealed that the gang members have targeted thousands of job seekers across several states including Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and Karnataka.
The men have looted money to the tune of Rs 200 crore from around 3,400 people, police said, after going through their seized laptops and cell phones. Later, they discovered that 360 more persons had fallen prey to the gang's tactics.
Puducherry cyber crime officials are now compiling detailed lists of victims from each state and will forward them to the respective local police forces.
Meanwhile, a search is under way to capture the alleged kingpin of the racket, Azam Khan.