Mumbai police bust ring of cybercriminals, 12th pass kingpin made Rs 5 cr a day

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Mumbai police has exposed a ring of cybercriminals that stole money from people from across the country by posing as police personnel and arrested its kingpin, who has studied till Class 12 and used to do transactions of more than Rs 5 crore a day in his accounts, an official said on Wednesday.

Mastermind Shrinivas Rao Dadi (49), who has sound technical knowledge despite limited education, was taken into custody by a team of Bangur Nagar police station from a plush hotel in Hyderabad, the official said.

Besides Dadi, police also arrested four more members of his gang, including two from neighbouring Thane and as many from Kolkata, he said.

Dadi pretended to run a real estate business and used to communicate only through the Telegram app. Police have so far frozen 40 bank accounts used by Dadi and recovered cash of Rs 1.5 crore from him, the official said.

Explaining the modus operandi of the cyber fraudsters, the official said that Dadi and his accomplices would call people, mostly women, posing as police officers and tell them that cops have found drugs or weapons in a courier sent by them, he said.

The caller would then demand the bank or income tax-related details saying those were needed to verify if the courier didn't belong to the person they were speaking with.

Ajay Kumar Bansal, deputy commissioner of police (zone -11), said most people would get scared by the phone call and share their bank or IT details. Victims also shared the one time password (OTP) and in some cases allowed the fraudsters to take control of their mobile phones by downloading apps like AnyDesk, the official said.

After accessing key details, the fraudsters would steal money from the victim's bank account. The cyber gang targeted thousands of people from across the country using this method, he said.

All money stolen by the gang would go into bank accounts managed by Dadi. The accounts had transactions of Rs 5 crore to Rs 10 crore a day, said the official. Dadi would then convert the money into cryptocurrency and transfer it to a Chinese national, said the official.

To investigate the case, city police teams are in Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Jharkhand, Haryana and other places in Maharashtra and more arrests are expected, he said.

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