Mumbai Crime: Three crush man's dream of holidaying abroad, 2 held

Bhaskar Bhadreshwar Nath (L) and Gopinath Janardhan Nair

The Matunga police have busted a gang of scammers who cheated people through their fake travel websites. Cops on Tuesday arrested two members and found transactions of over R2 crore in their bank account. A third member is absconding.

Cops identified the arrested accused as Gopinath Janardhan Nair, 33, Bhaskar Bhadreshwar Nath, 32. Nair is an engineering graduate and a professional online travel-booking agent, who lives at Palam Village in New Delhi. Nath is a resident of Ganesh Pada in Guwahati, Assam. Aparna Das from Guwahati is absconding.

The police nabbed the duo following a complaint from Matunga resident Saumil Bharat Modi, 42. According to the complaint, Modi had planned a family trip abroad and searched online for a travel agent. He stumbled upon www.ignitrixholidays.com and contacted the company via the number mentioned on the site.

The caller identified himself as Arjun Nair and they finalised a deal, after which Modi transferred to him R72,000 for flight bookings. Nair shared with him the PNR of the flight booking and asked for another R2.38 lakh for hotel bookings. Once Modi transferred the remaining amount, Nair blocked his phone number, cancelled his flight booking and got the refund in his own bank account.

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Realising that he had been defrauded, Modi immediately approached the Matunga police who registered an FIR.

During the investigation, police found that the website the accused created was fake and the IP address through which it was operating was in the name of Paban Jyoti Bhuyan, 30, a resident of Darrang in Assam.

A team of Matunga police went to Dispur in Assam, and with the help of the local cops, they traced one Arjun Nair. He told the cops that he develops websites and someone had approached him online to create ignitrixholidays.com. The police found out that the accused purchased IP addresses and used one to create 10-15 websites.

Police said they used the mobile phone location of Das to nab her. However, they released her as it was evening. She has been at large since. The cops also traced and arrested the other two accused.

According to the cops, the accused transferred their victims' money into an HDFC Bank account, which was registered in the name of ignitrixholidays.

Assistant Inspector Digambar Pagar of Matunga police station told mid-day, "We checked the bank account of the accused and found that transactions of R2.45 crore. During the investigation, we found out that around 27 cases of cyber fraud are registered across different cities against these accused."

Hyderabad, Rajasthan, Kolkata, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana are some of the states where police are investigating the gang.

Police said they recovered a laptop, six debit cards, three SIM cards, Aadhaar cards and a mobile phone from the accused, which they were using for duping people. They have been arrested under Sections 419 and 420 (cheating) of the IPC and relevant Sections of the IT Act.

The police team that nabbed the accused was led by senior inspector (SI) Sanjay Jagtap, and comprised SI Deepak Chavan, Inspector Shree Keshav, Assistant Inspector Digambar Pagar, Police Naik Santosh Pawar, constable Mangesh Jawhad. They also took the help of the cyber team, including constables Nikam and Nilesh Salunkhe.