Delhi Police busts cybercrime network which opened bank accounts on fake names

Delhi Police has busted a racket being run by cyber criminals where they were opening bank accounts on fake names to deposit money stolen fraudulently from unsuspecting people. The police came across the racket while probing a cyber crime case wherein a victim T Quereshi was cheated of Rs 61,800 by some cyber criminals.

The investigation started with Delhi Police registering the complaint of cyber crime in January 2023 following a complaint by Quereshi. During investigation, the law enforcement officials found out the modus operandi of the accused who stole Rs 61,800 from Quereshi and deposited it in the bank account in a bank in Sunder Vihar.

Further investigations revealed that the account was opened with fake documents. Moreover, the credentials of the account was changed at a cyber cafe reportedly by a juvenile who was subsequently apprehended on June 28.

The juvenile revealed details about the masterminds and also the modus operandi of creating a large number of bank accounts on fake names to Delhi Police. Following the new leads, the police arrested one Darvesh Kumar and his accomplice Priyanka Sarkar.

How the racket was being run?

As per the accused’s confession, they used to lure financially poor citizens by paying them Rs 10,000 to 15,000 to get their documents for opening accounts in several banks. They used to then change the addresses as mentioned in the Aadhaar card. Moreover, Priyanka Sarkar and the juvenile were also tasked in getting the PAN cards of the people in whose names the bank accounts were opened. Fake identities and other details were then uploaded to the UIDAI site every four days by the juvenile.

Priyanka used to carry the fake credentials to banks and open an account. After opening the account, Darvesh used to sell the bank kits for the sum of Rs 18,000 to 20,000.

The complex systems of this process did not end here.

Darvesh was not directly dealing with fraudsters but the kits that were sold by him used to be further sold ahead ultimately reaching the fraudsters.

Police later arrested two more persons involved in selling the kits. They have been identified as Deepak, who used to sell the kit for Rs 25,000, and Ajit who not only used to sell kits for Rs 30,000 to Rs 35,000  to fraudsters but also was tasked with depositing the money at a 10 per cent commision.

So far, Delhi Police has unearthed 100 bank accounts with deposits amounting to over Rs 2 crore.

"We have busted a gang of cyber criminals who were involved in opening fake bank accounts for depositing cheated money. In this case, four have been arrested while one juvenile has been apprehended. Further investigations in this case are underway," said Sanjay Kumar Sain DCP (Central), Delhi Police.