NEW DELHI: A gang of cheats has been busted . They called people posing as bank officials to alert them about fraudulent calls and then offered them deals on mutual funds and lotteries to save taxes. The victims were provided receipts of the funds and even a ‘government-approved’ certificate after which they were asked to deposit a cheque in the name of the company. Once the money was transferred, the gang members disappeared.

DCP (southeast) Chinmoy Biswal said that during the raid, the police team found that the gang was operating from Bareilly. A large amount of cash and debit cards have been recovered from them. The accused have been identified as Sameer Hussain (26), Rafiq Khan (24), Shahid Khan (21), Israil Khan (31) and Shahid Raza Khan (25).

On January 12, police received information regarding a gang of cheats involved in opening bogus bank accounts on the basis of fake ID cards and cheating innocent people by inducing them to deposit money and getting their money transferred in those bogus accounts as processing fees. A probe was launched and one of the gang members, Sameer Hussain, was nabbed from Jasola Vihar.

“Hussain was interrogated and police got information about the other four accused. A team was sent to their hideout and they were nabbed,” said DCP Biswal.

During interrogation, the men said they forged ID cards and opened accounts in different banks. They were in touch with some foreign nationals who lured people using fake emails in the name of gifts and lotteries. Thereafter, they withdrew the money from the particular bank accounts through their ground associates who opened these bank accounts and divided their share. They called people randomly offering deals on lotteries and mutual funds and if they agreed to invest, they convinced the victim to deposit the money.

They told police that they used to change the address in their own Aadhaar cards using rent agreements and other documents so police couldn’t reach them. They opened bank accounts in different banks using the Aadhaar cards. If they succeeded in opening bank account in one bank, they used it to open accounts in other banks as well.

Rafiq told police that they all are from Bareilly and they used to work in small-scale embroidery factories in Bareilly, Jaipur and Delhi.

