The Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) Special Cell, Delhi Police and Pune Police in a joint operation busted an online cheating racket, with the arrest of five persons from Rajasthan's Jaipur, the officials said on Tuesday.
According to Delhi Police, the accused used to dupe the victims on social media on the pretext of buying a service or product. They used to send a fake message of the paid amount which used to be much higher than the amount quoted, and would later demand a refund.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber Cell) KPS Malhotra said that the accused have been identified as H Meena (23), AK Meena (22), BL Meena (32), R Meena (23) and HM Meena (23), all from Rajasthan and were arrested from Jaipur.
The police have also recovered six mobile phones and a passbook of accounts used in cheating recovered.
The police said a Pune resident filed a complaint with the Pune Cyber Cell saying that she gives online classes/tuitions for which she gets fees through Google Pay.
"On November 11, one of the participants, Muskan Meena, contacted her on Instagram and said that she wanted to attend her class and asked about the fee payment. The victim said that the fee is Rs 1,800 per month. The accused then sent a screenshot of the payment of Rs 18,000 on Google Pay and asked her to refund Rs 16,200," said Mr Malhotra.
Without checking her account, the victim returned the alleged excess amount to the accused via Google Pay and later realised that she had been cheated.
A case was registered under sections relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and IT Act and the probe was initiated.
Muskan Meena had told the complainant that she lived in Dwarka, Delhi, for which the Pune Police had contacted the Delhi Police''s Cyber Crime Unit for assistance and on verification, the address was found to be fake, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber Cell) KPS Malhotra said.
The Delhi Police said that the technical enquiry revealed that the alleged persons were operating from Jaipur in Rajasthan after which a team on the basis of technical enquiry and manual intelligence, identified and apprehended following five persons who were later arrested by the Pune police.
Later, during interrogation, the accused persons disclosed that they had created different Instagram IDs in the names of girls and other persons.
"They used to visit Instagram shopping pages and after taking the screenshots of the product, asked the sellers its cost/price on his/her Direct message Box (DM). After that, they used to ask the Google Pay number of victims and used to send the fake message of the paid amount which used to be very higher than the amount quoted. After that, they used to ask the seller/victim that by mistake they had sent more amount," the DCP added.
The accused were produced before a Delhi court on Tuesday for transit remand to Pune.
