By Express News Service

BENGALURU: A gang of four men from Jharkhand, who had conned thousands of customers through an online scam termed as ‘bottom fishing’, are now cooling their heels behind bars.

Investigating officials were shocked to find a database of 16,000 customers’ bank accounts, multiple PAN cards and 460 SIM cards in the possession of the gang who are said to be college dropouts. The four men allegedly lured people by offering cash benefits for investments.

The modus operandi of the gang was to skim small amounts from many bank accounts, which would usually go unnoticed and no one would file a case, the officials said.

Investigators of the CID’s Economic Offences Wing, who busted the online racket, said the men were offering electronic gadgets and home appliances at throw away prices as part of their trap. Police have seized 15 mobile phones and laptops and hard disks which contained the database of account numbers. Most of the victims were lured with an investment offer in various schemes for monetary benefits of 2 per cent on their investment.

The arrested are Kapil Dev Suman alias Ajay Singh (26), Suraj Kumar (25), Susheel Kumar (24) and Biplav Kumar (24). They are natives of Bokaro in Jharkhand and had come to city to pursue their education five years ago. They were diploma dropouts and two worked in a call centre for a while.

CID officials said preliminary investigation revealed that the gang may have conned people to the tune of `15 lakh or more.

A senior police officer said, “The gang created more than 600 domain names to open online portals to cheat people on the pretext of selling products for cheap. CID found that the gang opened 28 bank accounts with fake documents and forged multiple PAN cards. They used 460 SIM cards and 15 mobile phones to skim the money through online transaction.”

“They lured people with investment offers with cash benefits. The victims were asked to log in to websites such as www.paymaza.com and www.manafaperday.com and were directed to update banking information. But the customers neither got the goods nor the interest promised,” the officer added.

The gang was nabbed based on a complaint on July 13 by one Suresh Sakri, a resident of JP Nagar. He had filed a case with the Cyber Crime police stating that two unanimous transactions were made through the SBI Buddy app and `5,000 and `2000 were debited from his account.

Three special police teams were formed and sent to Patna, Bodh Gaya and Ranchi. A technical team analysed the phone records, websites, e-mail IDs while a banking team probed the transaction details.

It was found that the money was credited into the account of Suman who had given fake documents in the name of Ajay Singh. He was picked up by the police and he revealed the names of his friends who were involved in the fraud. They wanted to lead a lavish life and used to stay in posh hotels, police said.

What cyber security experts advise

Verify the credibility and authenticity of firms before making payments.

Check for SEBI and RBI registration numbers of online traders.

Avoid making heavy payments through e-commerce portals.

Check for the lock/padlock symbol, SSL certificate, on the browser window which assures security.

All bank credentials should not be entered on a website.

Confirm the genuineness of payment gateway before a transaction and prefer popular portal only.

Avoid revealing bank details over phone, emails or SMS.

Check for skimming devices during card transactions.