Four Taiwanese among 17 arrested in major 'digital fraud' crackdown
- In Reports
- 02:27 PM, Oct 15, 2024
- Myind Staff
In a significant development regarding a case involving digital scams, the Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Police announced on Monday that they have arrested four individuals from Taiwan, part of a group of 17 suspects. Two of the suspects were apprehended in Delhi, while the other two were arrested in Bengaluru, according to Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Hardik Makadiya.
The accused engaged in a complex scheme in which they pretended to be representatives of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Mumbai Crime Branch of Maharashtra Police, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), and other government agencies. False allegations were also made in the name of a Mumbai court, and the Aadhaar card and bank account were misused as part of the complex scam.
In order to resolve an "RBI issue," the gang "digitally arrested" a senior citizen for ten days, monitored him through video calls and forced him to pay Rs 79.34 lakh in "refundable" processing fees, according to Joint Commissioner (Crime) Sharad Singhal. According to the police, the senior citizen had filed a complaint alleging that his account was being used for illicit transactions by individuals posing as TRAI, CBI, and cybercrime branch officials.
“After receiving a complaint last month, our teams raided places in Gujarat, Delhi, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Odisha and Maharashtra and nabbed 17 people, including four Taiwan natives, for running this nationwide racket. We believe they may have targeted some 1,000 persons so far,” Singhal told reporters. The Cyber Crime Police team arrested two Taiwanese nationals, Chang Hao Yun alias Marco and Mu Chi Sung alias Mark, from the Hotel Taj Palace in Delhi and two others, Wang Chun Wei (age 26) and Shen Wei (age 35), from Bengaluru after they boarded a flight from Taiwan to Delhi.
Separate accounts were used to hold the money that was taken from the complainant. As a result, eight individuals from Gujarat, Rajasthan, Delhi, and Odisha were arrested during raids in Surat, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, and Limbdi. Allegedly, these individuals used to rent bank accounts to Taiwanese defendants and receive commissions from criminal activity.
The Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Police said in a statement on Monday, “This crime has seen a new modus operandi where rooted mobiles were used — 20 such mobiles were found connected to routers, passing OTP links of various bank accounts to Taiwanese Gmail IDs. A technical analysis revealed that more than 120 mobiles were connected to it and such setups were operational in Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai.” Rooting a device disables built-in security features, as said officials.
As a result, raids were carried out at locations in Delhi and Mumbai, and Saif Haider, one of the main suspects, was taken into custody. He had direct communication with Mark, a Taiwanese man. According to reports, Mark supplied all of these rooted routers and mobile devices. In order to install this setup, he used to import the required hardware from Taiwan. He travelled to China, Cambodia, Dubai, and a number of Indian cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru.
Mark and his partner Marco were allegedly planning to expand their business during a recent trip to India on October 10. Their Indian agents allegedly provided them with rental accounts, which they then used to finance illicit betting websites and online frauds. This trip resulted in their arrest. According to officials, two additional Taiwanese nationals, Wang Chun Wei alias Sumoka (26), and Shen Wei Haw alias Krish (35), were operating the same setup as the technical equipment discovered earlier during the raid in Bengaluru. Additionally, accused Saif Haider and absconding Mark's assistant Simon alias Sevanna were taken into custody.
“The mobile app being used by the gang was developed by the Taiwanese accused. They have also integrated online wallets in their system. Money received from victims was transferred to other bank accounts as well as crypto accounts in Dubai using this app. They used to get a commission through hawala on the money they used to route through that app,” as told by Singhal.
He added that the racket was operated from call centres that were set up to look like actual probe agency offices and from which video calls were placed. According to Singhal, police have found 42 bank passbooks, 92 debit and credit cards, 761 SIM cards, 120 cell phones, 96 chequebooks, and Rs 12.75 lakh in cash that was taken out on rent in order to conduct transactions.
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