The Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Branch in Gujarat on Wednesday arrested two persons allegedly involved in duping residents of different states on the pretext of updating Know Your Customer (KYC) of payment application Paytm, police said. Three laptops, 39 SIM cards, two mobiles, three SIM boxes used for sending multiple SMSs, were also seized by the cyber-crime police along with Rs 58.20 lakh found in different bank accounts of the accused.
The arrested conmen were identified as Sohil Khan Pathan, a 12th pass out and his accomplice Mohsin Khan Pathan, who studied till 9th standard, a release by the cyber-crime branch said. An analysis of the mobile number data recovered from the accused revealed that the city-based duo had duped numerous unsuspecting Paytm users from at least eight states- Gujarat, Haryana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Punjab and Delhi.
"In Gujarat alone, the duo and their accomplices sitting in other states had duped 190 persons of Rs 1.13 crore in the last two years. Using SIM box hardware and SIM cards, the main accused Sohil Khan sent around 25 lakh SMSs to their targets in two years," said Deputy Commissioner of Police, Cyber Crime, Amit Vasava. He added that investigation is underway to find out exact number of victims the accused had duped across the country so far.
Sohil Khan was in contact with the fraudsters of other states and had bought data of lakhs of customers online, claiming that he needed it for his Ayurvedic medicine business, police said. The duo came under the radar of cyber crime police during an investigation into a complaint regarding a fraud of Rs 98,000 from a Paytm user.
It was revealed that the Khan duo used to send SMSs with the text that read: "Dear Customer, your Paytm wallet has been blocked. Complete your KYC." When an unsuspecting user calls them on the number mentioned in the SMS, the accused used to convince them in downloading a specific mobile app and used to acquire OTP from the victims on the pretext of completing the procedure, they said. Using that OTP, the duo used to transfer money from victims' bank accounts, credit cards and wallets into their wallets and accounts.
While investigating the case of Rs 98,000 fraud, the cybercrime police successfully traced the money trail and zeroed in on Mohsin and Sohil, the release said.
