THE CHINA-linked instant loan mobile app racket, busted by Chandigarh cyber cell last month, was found involved in at least 1,578 cheating incidents across the country in the last one year. The majority of cases — 464 out of 1,578 — were reported in Uttar Pradesh, followed by 154 in Rajasthan, followed by 146 in the national capital of Delhi. Other states where complaints were lodged are Chennai, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
Sources said at least 89 FIRs were found registered citing people who were cheated after being blackmailed and threatened on the pretext of leaking their morphed objectionable pictures. Sources said so far, Chennai police and police from Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh applied for production warrants for taking the custody of at least 27 accused, including Chinese national Wan Chenghua lodged in Model Burail jail. Sources said that the phone numbers and IMEI numbers of cell phones used by the accused were found to be used for cheating with the people across the country.
SP (cyber cell) Ketan Bansal says, “We received feedback from many states through the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) that the accused persons arrested by us were found linked with 1,578 cheating, forgery, extortion complaints. We were informed that 89 FIRs were registered in connection with these cheating cases. We shared the information about the arrested accused with Indian Cybercrime Coordination Center (ICCC), a centralized portal of all states/UTs under 14C scheme. The feedback was received yesterday.”
The gang was busted on September 12. It was found involved in more than Rs 100 crore hawala transactions to China too. The Central investigation agencies, including IB and ED, have also joined the probe.
However, three accused, identified as Mashukar Dubey of Gaziabad, Rajesh Mathur of Gaziabad and C Chinnasamy Sellappan of Tamil Nadu were arrested two days ago. The role of a political party, Bhartiya Rajnitik Vikalp Party, also came under the scanner as some amount was transferred from alleged bank accounts of accused to the account of Bhartiya Rajnitik Vikalp Party.
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