In a high-altitude operation, Delhi Police’s Cyber Cell arrested two cyber fraudsters from Sarchu, a remote, oxygen-thin region on the Himachal-Ladakh border, after tracking them for over 800 km, Delhi police said in a press release on Tuesday.
The arrest followed a complaint from a woman wtrackingho lost Rs 69,953 to a scammer pretending to be from an online coaching company. The case was registered with the Crime Branch, which quickly discovered a larger fraud network involving the misuse of bank accounts belonging to poor rural labourers.
Investigations led the police to Dumka and Godda in Jharkhand, where they found that many bank accounts used in the fraud were opened in the names of illiterate daily wage workers. These accounts were created by contractors who kept control of the ATM cards and passbooks, using them later to move stolen money.
A team was dispatched to Jharkhand, where cops posed as locals and discreetly traced and raided the suspects' residences. The team arrested two labourers, namely, Ramjeet, whose account received Rs 20,005, and Badri Rai, whose bank account received the cheated amount of Rs 69,953, The Times of India reported.
During questioning, they revealed the names of two main suspects, Imran Ansari and Mansoor Ansari, who had fled to avoid arrest.
A special team of Delhi Police tracked the accused through Manali, Rohtang, and Keylong, finally arresting them in Sarchu. The two men, aged 43 and 55, admitted to running a cyber fraud racket. They tricked vulnerable labourers into opening bank accounts, claiming it was for salary payments, and later used these accounts for money laundering.
“These criminals had devised a new strategy of fleeing to isolated, high-altitude locations like Ladakh to avoid detection, knowing the jurisdictional and network limitations in such areas," ANI quoted DCP Harsh Indora, who supervised the operation.
The police are now working to identify more members of the network and dismantle the syndicate operating across multiple states.
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