The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police busted an inter-state cyber fraud racket by arresting two fraudsters from Rajasthan for allegedly opening fake accounts in the Indian Postal Payment Banks only in the name of illiterate people in Nabarangpur district for committing cybercrimes

The accused persons identified as Mahmud Khan and Munfed Khan were arrested with the help of the Rajasthan Police from Ramgarh police station jurisdiction of the northern state. They were produced before ACJM, Ramgarh, Alwar, in Rajasthan and brought on five days’ transit remand to Bhubaneswar for their production before the SDJM, Bhubaneswar.

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The group of fraudsters, as revealed so far, has opened about 2000 mule accounts in different parts of the country, mainly in Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar and Assam, EOW said in a statement on Tuesday.

This case was registered on the allegation of opening mule accounts with Indian Post Payment Bank (IPPB) in the name of different gullible persons especially in Nabarangpur by giving the impression that the account holders would get monetary benefits under different government schemes through these accounts. But these accounts were used for illegal money transactions (in various Cyber Crimes) beyond the knowledge of the actual account holders.

Investigation revealed that some local youths of Nabarangpur in criminal conspiracy with some scamsters of Rajasthan had created hundreds of mule accounts with Indian Post Payment Bank (IPPB) by using the Aadhaar, PAN, photographs of the innocent villagers, but these accounts were being latched with different SIM numbers so provided by the fraudsters operating from Rajasthan. As a result, any transaction carried out through these accounts was being intimated to the fraudsters, who were managing the phones with given SIM numbers.

Apart from the IPPB account fraud, the fraudsters were illegally procuring SIMs from different sources and states for use in cyber scam.

It is being suspected that over 1,000 persons from Alwar and Bharatpur districts of Rajasthan and tri-junction area of Rajasthan, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh, mainly Mewat region, Bhiwandi, Tijara, Kishangadh, Ramgarh, Laxmangadh, Nagar, and Gobindgarh, are involved in cyber fraud of this nature, added EOW.