Conmen from Mumbai try to dupe women with 'govt offer' in other states

Photo for representational purpose

An investigation into online bank cheating cases revealed that a gang recently busted in the city had tried to con over 100 women in Bihar and Jharkhand in the last one year, citing a ‘government offer' of Rs 2,500 to pregnant women or those who delivered babies recently.

As per a report in The Times of India, accused Gunilal Mandal's gang had sought their bank account details for fraud but no woman provided any, said Mumbai Police, who is interrogating Mandal in two cyber fraud cases. He was arrested early this month from his village, Paniya (Bihar) while he was with a co-accused to target a gullible person, and was then brought to Mumbai.

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"The eight-member gang used at least 150 accounts to transfer money they would get by cheating people. The money would be transferred to various accounts before reaching the accounts of the gang members, making it difficult for the police to trace," said an officer.

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Mandal was interrogated by inspector Rajan Bidkar, sub-inspector Pradip Patil and constable Suraj Dahigude.

"We found a notebook with 100 phone numbers. Mandal said they had contacted the women for account details. They lied to them and said that the government would give Rs 2,500 to each woman. All of them told the gang to not call again or disconnected the line," an officer said.

Police seized 13 mobile phones from the accused. The gang had bought SIM cards in the name of other persons from West Bengal. They also used online money transfer app-activated SIM cards which they had bought for Rs 5,000 each.

Police, from call data records of Mandal's phone, found he had called up over 100 people.

Mandal was booked in a second case of cheating where he had asked a Grant Road businessman to share an OTP to update phone banking and later transferred Rs 2 lakh from the victim's account to different accounts. The victim quickly approached police and investigators blocked the accounts and saved Rs 1.4 lakh.

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