Mumbai Crime: After jungle chase in Jamtara, Nagpada cops nab three cyber crooks

Riyaz Ansari, Sattar Ansari and Nazeer Ansari

The Nagpada police have arrested three cyber crooks from Jharkhand's Jamtara district, which is infamous for its phishing activities. The accused had been tipped off and started running towards the jungle minutes before the police arrived at their location. After pursuing the trio 3-4 km into the jungle, the Nagpada cops arrested them.

According to the police, the accused were inspired by the lifestyle of villagers in Jamtara where almost everyone has a car and a well-maintained house with all basic amenities. "The accused were labourers, and they learned everything they could about cyber fraud from their fellow villagers," an officer said.

The accused, Sattar Ansari, 28; Riyaz Ansari, 21; and Nazeer Ansari, 28, are residents of the same locality. According to the Nagpada police, the accused have been defrauding people across India while claiming to provide quick and cheap courier services. They had created a fake website of a leading courier company.

Also read: Gang of quacks runs amok in Mumbai cancer hospitals

Unusual training

The accused have told the police that they were trained by people in their village and that they had been carrying out the scam for the past 4-5 months from inside the jungle as it was difficult for the cops to reach them there.

"We walked around 13 to 14 km to reach their exact location. Along with the local cyber team, the accused were tipped off, but we caught them after a 3-4-km chase deep inside the jungle," an officer privy to the investigation said. According to the police, the operation was extremely difficult as the villagers came out in large numbers to support the fraudsters.

Modus operandi

According to the police, most of the victims had searched for a particular courier company on Google and landed on the page of the fake firm created by the accused. "The moment a customer would call, one of the accused would pick up. The customer was then told that someone would call them to answer their queries," said Maheshkumar Thakur, SPI, Nagpada police station.

"The customer would then gets a call from another number and be provided with a link where he could share details. He would have to make the payment of R5. The crooks would get control of the phone using an app that the customer had been asked to download. The fraudsters would then use their tactics to withdraw money from their account," Thakur added.

One such case was registered by the Nagpada police in December 2022, where a complainant was cheated of R15,000. "We worked on the case thoroughly and found that the accused were operating from Jamtara, and similarly, a team of officers was deployed to the district on February 16. A raid was conducted with the help of the local police on February 18, but the accused tried to escape after we reached there. The officers chased them in a jungle and apprehended three accused," he said.

Thakur added that the accused were brought to Mumbai and produced before the Sewri court, which remanded them in police custody till February 28. According to the police,it appears that the accused have defrauded hundreds across the nation and so far, they have found details of cases registered in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam. They suspect that the trio might be involved in cases registered at the Ghatkopar, LT Marg and Kalyan police stations.

18
Day in Feb when arrests occurred