Delhi Police arrests man for duping people amid COVID.
In a major success in cracking down on cyber fraudsters cheating needy people in the name of COVID-19 help, Delhi Police Crime Branch has arrested kingpin of the gang for duping gullible public on pretext of providing oxygen cylinders and covid medicines.
A team of Star-II, Crime Branch has nabbed Deepak Prasad (42 years) son of late Bindeshwari Prasad resident of Sunderpur, Nalanda, Bihar. The accused person has admitted to have cheated more than a lakh rupees from over 300 people since March 2021.
On May 4, a complainant reported that a person was in extreme need for an oxygen cylinder for his neighbour suffering from covid. He found a mobile number on social media claiming to provide oxygen cylinders.
When the complainant contacted on the given mobile number through WhatsApp message, the receiver asked him to pay Rs 7,500 for oxygen cylinder. Complainant made payment to the culprit through Google Pay. He assured the complainant that the cylinder would reach at his address.
However, no oxygen cylinder ever reached and afterwards, when the complainant tried to contact the accused and made several calls on the given mobile phone but got no answer as the accused had blocked the phone number of complainant.
In this regard, a case with FIR No. 312/21 under section 420 of the IPC was registered at Police Station Kalkaji, South-East Delhi. Similarly, many more cases of cheating were also registered in different police stations in Delhi, across the country.
The investigation has found that during the last two-three months, the gang used more than 100 mobile SIMs and multiple mobile phones to send messages to innocent public and cheated them.
Crime Branch, through technical analysis of data collected from various service providers, found that the gang was operating from Sundarpur, Katri Sarai, District- Nalanda, Bihar.
On May 15, during search of an accused house, at least 18 SIM cards and 13 mobile phones were recovered. During interrogation, accused Deepak Prasad disclosed that in 2018, he alongwith his associated started cheating innocent people.
The probe found that the culprits were using more than 7 bank accounts for cheating and duped more than Rs 50 lakhs from over 300 people the country.
