With the arrest of three persons, the Cyber Police team of the North Delhi has succeeded in busting a cyber criminal gang involved in duping gullible patients on the pretext of providing Ayurvedic treatment at Patanjali Yoga Gram, Haridwar.

The accused have been identified as Harendra Kumar, 25, Ramesh Patel, 31 and Ashish Kumar, 22, all hailing from Bihar. Five laptops, ten mobiles, 19 SIM cards, Wi-Fi modem, etc, have been recovered from the accused. An amount of Rs 1,66,000 has been frozen in the bank account of the accused.

During the inquiry, it was revealed that the accused created a fake website of Patanjali Yog Gram and received calls from patients and impersonated themselves as Ayurvedic doctors for registration and booking.

Accused Ramesh and Ashish disclosed that they would purchase pre-activated SIMs of West Bengal, Assam and Orissa from various sources. They also purchased pre-activated bank accounts, which were used for transfer of payment and withdrawals.

The accused further revealed that fake websites were created so that people looking for treatment at Patanjali Yog Gram will contact them for booking as no option of online booking for stay at Patanjali Yog Gram was available on the internet.

Once the victim contacted them on their number mentioned on the website, they introduced themselves as Doctor of Patanjali Yog Gram and used to charge money in the name of booking and treatment.

Further money was withdrawn by different persons at different locations. They even sent forged payments receipts and booking vouchers to the victims to gain trust. It was even revealed that the accused Harendra created websites in the name of https://tptayurved.in/ and https://theayurvedicupchar.com/ with Ayurveda and treatment as keywords.

The accused also revealed that they keep on changing numbers on websites as their numbers get marked as spam on true-callers after making some calls. 20 fake websites in the name of Patanjali Yoga Gram and other Ayurvedic treatment centres were identified and details were sent to National Internet Exchange of India for blocking.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (North Delhi), Sagar Singh Kalsi said that a complaint on Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) Cyber Crime Portal in the name of Nitin Sharma was received at Cyber Police Station, North District. It was alleged that the complainant, who searched a mobile number on Google and contacted it for Ayurvedic treatment of his son, was duped of over Rs 2,40,500 in the name of registration and other booking process at Patanjali Niramayam, Haridwar.

A case was registered on the complaint and investigation was taken up. The police team started technical analysis and identified one suspect. The accused was apprehended from Patna, Bihar, who created a fake website. Subsequently, other two accused were also arrested on the information provided by the arrested accused.