Courier scam: 3-member gang arrested in MP

Coimbatore: The Coimbatore city cybercrime police have busted a courier scam and arrested a three-member gang from Madhya Pradesh that allegedly cheated many people across the country.
The arrested accused were identified as N Ravikumar Sharma, 23, N Mukul Chandel, 24, and R Anil Jatav, 24, all from Guna in Madhya Pradesh.
With the help of Madhya Pradesh police, the Coimbatore city cybercrime police arrested the trio on July 4.They were remanded in judicial custody and lodged at the Coimbatore Central Prison on July 6.
Police said the gang came under the radar after they cheated C George, 75, of Ram Nagar in the city, to the tune of 67 lakh in June.
George was contacted over a video call by a person named Vinay Kumar Choubey on June 8. The caller claimed that he was a police officer from Bandra police station in Mumbai.
George was told that his name was included as an accused in a cheating case after a fraudster used his Aadhaar card for a bank account and a SIM card. The next day, another person posing as Choubey’s superior Akash Kulhari contacted George and told him that they had obtained a warrant from the Supreme Court to arrest him.
George was asked to pay a fine to evade the arrest and he transferred 67 lakh from one of his bank accounts to many bank accounts shared by the unknown person.
The online fraudster contacted him again and asked him to send 10 lakh more to the bank account.
When George approached another bank to withdraw the amount from the fixed deposit, the bank manager enquired him about the need. George revealed the incident to the bank manager, who advised him to contact the cybercrime police. Police registered a case on June 12.
“We have seized laptops, mobile phones, SIM cards, and bank passbooks from the trio. The fraudsters used more than 700 bank accounts opened in the names of people from various states and they were using 100 UPI IDs for fraudulent transactions of 2.25 crore,” a police officer said.