Hyderabad: The Cyberabad cyber crime police busted a gang that floated three fake BPOs in Delhi to collect details of credit cards of State Bank of India customers, and duped some of the victims of Rs 5 crore. As many as 1,500 victims hail from Hyderabad, while there were said to be thousands in other metropolitan cities except Delhi.
The prime accused, Vijay Kumar Sharma, 38, an LLB graduate from Delhi, was arrested in 2017, by the Delhi police for running a fake BPO to commit cyber fraud. After being released on bail, he returned to cheating people and roped in seven others including a textile businessman from the city.
Sharma, along with Abhijit Shrivatsav, 28, his wife Sita Kumari, 28, and brother Ashuthosh Shrivatsav, 27, who earlier worked as employees in the BPOs that provided service for SBI, floated three BPOs in Delhi. They hired 22 tele-callers and hired Dharam Raj, 34, and Rehan Khan, 25, as team leaders at the BPOs. In three months, the gang, according to the Cyberabad police, cheated people of '5 crore.
Explaining the modus operandi of the gang, Cyberabad police commissioner V.C. Sajjanar said “Sharma, who was into the textile business, was a regular visitor to the city to sell the textiles to Sandeep Bajaj, 42, of Kompally. As Sandeep was running into losses, Sharma roped him into the ring.
Sharma developed two e-commerce websites, JayyShree.com and jeanslike.com, and linked three current bank accounts opened by Sandeep in the city.
“Tele-callers were given data of the customers using SBI credit cards, that was procured by Abhijit, Sita and Ashutosh,” Mr Sajjanar said.
The SBI credit card division in the city has received around 1,500 complaints, while there are several thousand across the country. “The accused never targeted customers living in Delhi so as to avoid complaints in the local police stations. In each transaction, the customer lost Rs 8,500, of which 15 per cent commission was meant for Sandeep, 35 per cent for the tele-callers and 50 per cent for Sharma,” Mr Sajjanar said.
He said that cyber crime team had apprehended 30 accused including 22 tele-callers involved in the fraud and seized Rs 85 lakh from them.
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