New Delhi: An 88-year-old man’s stolen mobile phone helped Delhi Police unravel a pan-India cyberfraud syndicate that stole phones and used them to access bank accounts of their owners and siphon off money.The operation involved a network of phone thieves, suppliers of mule bank accounts and other financial instruments in Meerut and Ghaziabad, and a call-centre-style setup in Jaipur that allegedly handled the technical aspects of the fraud and withdrew the money.An investigation began after the West Patel Nagar resident lost his phone on May 19. Two days later, after getting his SIM card reissued, he received alerts about three unauthorised transactions totalling Rs 70,000. A case was registered, following which DCP (central) Rohit Rajbir Singh formed two teams to investigate the fraud.The probe revealed the multi-layered operation of the syndicate. One group used to steal phones, while their associates arranged mule bank accounts, debit cards, fake SIM cards and point-of-sale (POS) machines to receive and withdraw the money.A third group operated a call-centre-style setup in Jaipur, whose members accessed victims’ banking accounts, routed unauthorised transactions through mule accounts and quickly withdrew the funds using POS machines and online payment channels.Acting on the leads, police raided some residential premises in Jhotwara, Jaipur, and arrested alleged principal operator, Nikhil Soni, along with four associates. The raid uncovered a functional setup equipped with laptops, tablets and routers, besides passbooks, personal diaries containing victims’ details and Rs 4 lakh in cash.Another police team conducted raids at multiple locations in Ghaziabad and Meerut and arrested four alleged suppliers of the mule-account network: Amar Jatav, Harsh, Mohan and Vashu.Police also seized six POS machines before the gang could destroy crucial digital evidence. In all, the cops recovered 52 mobile phones containing data of their owners, banking apps and WhatsApp logs, along with 145 SIM cards, 70 debit cards, 13 bank passbooks, four routers and six laptops/tablets. Digital forensic analysis of the seized gadgets is underway.Police said the investigation has so far linked the syndicate to 19 complaints registered on National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal across different states.
