Conmen from Jharkhand forests dupe Mumbaikars of lakhs

The villagers usually work in pairs Dialling any number at random they first try and convince the victim of their presumed identity mostly that of a bank staffIn the second week of June a 38yearold businessman from Marine Drive received a phone call from an executive of the bank with which he had a credit card The executive on the pretext of upgrading his credit card with an offer of increasing the credit limit obtained the cards details of Rishiraj Anandan name changed to protect identity mdash CVV number birth date the 16digit credit card number and expiry date of the card along with several onetime passwords OTPs generated in a short time By the time Anandan realised that he had become the victim of an online fraud his card had been used to purchase goods worth Rs 356 lakh online Worse the executive had also used the card to get an instant loan of Rs 3 lakhOnce theyve won them over they ask the victim to furnish their bank account and debit card detailsLike Anandan Worli resident Sadashiv Uplekar changed name also didnt realise that the customer care executive from a bank who called him in June would dupe him of Rs 134 lakh in the name of updating an old debit card Uplekar too shared his OTP with the executive After finding that money was deducted from his account and spent on shopping for products which he didnt buy he called back on the callers number but to only discover that they werent availableAlso read 4 Indians 1 Pakistani plead guilty in call centre scam in USThese do seem like any other vishing see box Know your scam fraud cases multiple numbers of which have been registered across the citys several police stations One minor detail aside ie When the Marine Drive and Worli cops mdash where Anandan and Uplekar registered FIRs mdash traced the origins of the calls and the executives they found that the two had like many others in Mumbai become victims of a vishing fraud rooted in a district called Jamtara in Jharkhand Oh and Jamtara is notorious across the country for these frauds mdash cops from the district say that police officers come visiting almost every 15 days to trace and arrest the fraudstersThe unsuspecting victim falls for the ruse and shares the 16digit debit card number including the OTPProfessional fraudsters of JamtaraThe population of Jamtara a district with 1175 villages of which more than 50 are involved in the scam that was created in 2001 stands at less than 8 lakh according to the 2011 censusFor quite a few years fraud has been a career of sorts here The first case was registered in 2013Also read Shaggy Tales What we know about Mira Road call centre scam kingpin so farThe SubDivisional Police Officer of the district Pujya Prakash while speaking over the phone from Jharkhand says Most of those who have been arrested claim to be farmer who turned to cyber crime after seeing the easy cash that can be made Prakash adds The villages that till five years ago had huts are now lined with large bungalows And theres constant competition If one family gets a R20 lakh bungalow another will want to trounce them by building something that costs twice or thrice that amount And aside from bungalows most of the other cash is spent on purchasing electronic accessories or saved in varied bank accountsIronically most of those involved in the crime have minimal schoolingOnce the fraudster has acquired the details he begins transacting money through ewalletsTake the case of 19yearold Bishnu Kumar Mandal from Kashitar village for instance Arrested earlier this year in his statement to Assistant SubInspector Prabhat Kumar of Karmatar police station on March 17 he said that he has studied till Std I and was into farming like his father Subhash Mandal More than a year ago I saw that my brother Pappu Kumar Mandal and a few other villagers including Wakil Mandal Prakash Mandal Rohit Mandal had turned to cyber crime and were earning good money on a daily basisThis he says prompted him to join him I too wanted to get rich soon So I started calling people with the help of my brother and friends The accessories seized by the police including mobile LED TV air conditioner laptop and even a motorcycle were all purchased through online shopping Also all cash earned from cheating people has been saved in different banks he has said Among his other assets is a house worth R20 lakh which he built in his village from the money earned from the fraudIts not an individual effort The men often form groups and work together to swindle othersSitaram Mandal 56 a resident of Kurwa village in his statement on March 21 has said that attracted by the possibility of earning much more he and his son Rahul joined others naming eight others who were part of a dal group We claimed to be senior bank employees and would cheat people taking their bank account and pin details With the help of ewallet the cash would be transferred in our accountThe fraudsters use the illgotten money from several victims to build bungalows in Jamtara The villages that till five years ago had huts are now lined with large bungalows IllustrationRavi JadhavThe school of fraudHow does a former farmer overnight become a slick fraudster able to trick even the most wary Mumbaikar Coaching classesDuring interrogation after raids conducted in 2016 mdash with help of the BSF and army mdash in the forested areas of Kamatar from where the operations usually take place officers from the cyber cell of Buruch Jharkhand got information of coaching centres held under top secrecyAlso read After Mira road another call centre duping US citizens busted in ThaneMalkesh Gohil the investigation officer attached with Buruch cyber cell says No outsider can enrol for these classes Its here that villagers would train fresh and young minds on how to make fraud calls cheating people with sweet talk They also train them in banking and transferring cash or online shopping Even if a fraudster makes 100 calls a day and manages five victims he could earn anywhere between Rs 10000 to Rs 1 lakh a day mdash an amount hed not make from an entire year of farmingGohil says they arrested two swindlers recently using the frauds own techniqueOnce we got details of a bank account used by the fraudsters we approached the bank manager and asked him to contact the account holder They approach them claiming that they needed their PAN card We then laid a trap as we had a picture of the accused We found that he made three to four rounds to the bank to check whether there was a trap Only when satisfied that there was none did they enter the bank As soon as they did we shut the doors and arrested them on the spot Gohil addsPradip Mandal and Pradhuman Mandal from Karmatar village were arrested by the Jamtara police a fortnight ago and were handed over to the Odisha police Pujya Prakash the senior divisional police officer of Jamtara police said The duo had made a vishing call to people in Odisha The Odisha police shared their details a month ago but when we raided their homes we found them missing mdash they tend to get information about raids So we kept a spy and with the help of local sympathisers continued keeping a watch As soon as we got to know that they two were around we conducted a raid at their homes and arrested them The house in which they reside was built after spending more than Rs 20 lakhThe slippery Ansaris and MandalsThe one thing that the cyber cell has found common in its arrests is that all the accused either bear the surname of Ansari or Mandal Even then nabbing them is usually a tough jobFor starters their network extends to other citiesIn 2016 the cyber cell of Madhya Pradesh police tracked the fraud to an address near Delhi where the delivery of several purchases made online from a defrauded card were to be made We found that the accused is an account holder from Delhi and had made purchases through an ewallet We contacted the online portal and got the delivery held over As soon as we reached Faridabad we went to the address pretending to be a delivery boy When we raided the residence we found more than 50 laptops mobile phones and other electronic items says Aditya Sahu an official from the departmentThe man they arrested confessed but asserted that he was just a small fish The masterminds were in Jamtara All those who operate from Jamtara have their relatives or friends working in Metro cities like Delhi Bengaluru or somewhere in West Bengal among others Their Jamtara counterparts get in touch with them and operate the business sharing the profits We arrested one villager from Jamtara but it took almost four months to reach Jamtara and we never thought it would turn out to be the hub of cyber criminals the typical villagers wearing dhoti and shirt It was hard to believe that the farmers barely Std VIII pass were cheating thousands of educated people with just their sweet talking skills added SahuHouse built by Sitaram Mandal of of Kurwa villageAnd though the fraudsters would sell items purchased at Rs 50000 for Rs 30000 it was still a profit Most of the fraudsters are in the 1525 age group They would earlier operate from the terrace of their homes but the risk involved in the business doesnt allow them to take rest They rarely if ever sleep at home fearing police action and operate from the jungle from 10 am to 6 pm Two people work at a time One lures the customer over the phone and once he gets the debitcredit card details and OTP the other guy does the online shopping added an officer from MP cyber cell That everyone here has a 4G internet helps ensure connectivityA senior officer from the Buruch police claims the local police has only recently become cooperative Often when wed visit the local police stations we noticed that the senior officer would contact the village home guard who would visit the resident of the accused to check his presence alerting the accused Therefore on raiding the place investigators wont be able to trace the accused as many fraudsters of the village would have fled by then Additionally most call centres are operated from forested areas he addedPolice Inspector Sunil Pawar earlier posted with the cyber cell department of Pune police says that tracing accused in vishing cases is a tough task In 2015 we first got the link to the accused by tracing the mobile number But when we traced him we discovered that it was in the name of some other person who has nothing to do with the crime Later we tried to trace the accused with the help of bank accounts but that too didnt yield any result as there was no KYC know your customer done before opening an account We arrested two persons from Jamtara after almost two months but they were released on bail within a week They never attended a single court proceeding They change their operating place and its tough to trace them again They take advantage of the loopholes of our legal system he addsHouse built by Bishnu Kumar Mandal 19 from Kashitar villageNew cop more arrestsThe tide turned for Jamtara with the appointment of Superintendent of Police Dr Jaya Roy an IPS officer in December 2016 While last year 40 cases were registered in the last seven months 50 cases have been registered and 100 arrested The cases were registered under sections of the Indian Penal Code and different section of the Information Technology Act In most cases we seized huge quantities of mobile phones and SIM cards which were being used to commit the offence Once the SIM is used to dupe someone they throw it and never use it again adds Roy In the past few months we have visited different villages in the district in Jamtara creating awareness among the villagers educating them about importance of education for their kids to get good jobs so that they need not opt for a life of crime