The special task force of Uttarakhand Police, along with the cyber cell, have arrested a cybercriminal from Delhi for allegedly committing a fraud of around ₹26 lakh, police officials said.
The special task force of Uttarakhand Police, along with the cyber cell, have arrested a cybercriminal from Delhi for allegedly committing a fraud of around ₹26 lakh, police officials said.
The police also recovered six mobile phones, 12 voter identification cards, 10 Aadhaar cards, seven PAN cards, 18 debit cards, 11 passbooks and cheque books, one driving license, one vehicle registration certificate and dozens of passport-sized photographs of different people.
The accused, identified as Sonu Nishad, is a resident of Delhi and a history-sheeter. The police have been looking for the accused for the past one year, senior superintendent of police (STF) Ajay Singh said.
“Not just Uttarakhand, police from various states, including Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana have been looking for the accused. We are collaborating with our colleagues in other parts of the country in connection with the offences he committed in other states,” he said.
The incident came to light after Varsha Sharma, a resident of Mothrowala in Dehradun, registered a complaint with the cybercrime police station that an unidentified person, with whom her husband came in touch through WhatsApp, duped them of ₹26 lakh on the pretext of sending money and gold bricks from abroad.
Based on her complaint, we booked a case of fraud against an unidentified person on October 30, 2020. A police team, headed by inspector Pankaj Pokhriyal of the cybercrime department, was constituted to nab the accused.
Upon examining the technical evidence, it came to light that such crimes were being committed by unknown persons who posed as foreign nationals to dupe people via WhatsApp, the police said.