Mumbai: 17-year-old revealed to be true handler of gang that poses as IPS officers

Police and the accused who was arrested in Visakhapatnam on Saturday

The 47-year-old man who was thought to be the main handler of the racket where citizens were targeted by crooks posing as senior officials has revealed that his 17-year-old son is, in fact, the one operating the entire racket.

The accused, who was arrested by the Bangur Nagar Link Road police on Saturday in Visakhapatnam, had thought his teenage son, who eventually superseded him, the tricks of the trade. The teen is known as ‘Don VIP' by fellow scamsters. During his interrogation, the accused stated that his entire family has been involved in the racket for the past two years.

"The gang members would call victims pretending to be customs officials and tell them that a parcel had arrived in their name, in which drugs had been found. Later, a Skype call bearing the name of a DCP-rank officer from the cyber crime branch would be made to the victims and they would be summoned to the police station for an inquiry. After threatening to arrest their terrified prey, the scamsters would demand money to settle the matter. Cases of this nature have been registered recently at the Bangur Nagar Link Road, Vanrai and other police stations in the city," a police officer said. He added, "The accused had duped two Pune-based women of Rs 6.89 lakh while posing as DCP (Zone XI) Ajaykumar Bansal."

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Under the guidance of the actual DCP Bansal, Senior Inspector Pramod Tavde of the Bangur Nagar Link Road police station formed a team led by the API Vivek Tambe and API Rahul Bhadarge, who are part of the cyber unit, and arrested two people each from Titwala and Kolkata last month. The same team nabbed the 47-year-old on Saturday.

An officer said, "During the inquiry and interrogation of the arrested handler, it was revealed that his family was illicitly earning one per cent commission or approximately R10 lakh per day. Investigations revealed that approximately R5 to 10 crore would get deposited in various bank accounts and the handler would transfer funds to the mastermind, who is in China."

"Around R25 lakh had been transferred to the accused's wife's accounts. which we have frozen with the help of banks. After cross-checking the bank statements of the four accused arrested earlier and interrogating them, we came to know that the 47-year-old was referred to as DON VIP but when we caught the man himself, we learnt that Don VIP was actually his minor son. Hundreds are working for the boy," he said.

According to the police, the teen had asked all the gang members to install an SMS-forwarder application on their phones, which would divert all information pertaining to bank transactions to his devices. "Thus, the actual account holders did not receive messages from the bank and did not even know how much amount had been deposited and withdrawn from their accounts," an officer said. DCP Ajaykumar Bansal said, "The Bangur Nagar cyber cell officials have done remarkable work and busted the first such racket in the city. More arrests are likely in the coming days."

Apr 29
Day 47-year-old was arrested