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MUMBAI: With the arrest of a cyber fraudster who created a fake website of a hotel and fleeced an accountant of Rs 49,500 as booking charges for a room, police have stumbled upon a new modus operandi that gives scamsters easy access to mobile numbers of hundreds of people who they eventually target.

The accountant had wanted to book a room near the airport for three days and was duped of the amount over three bank transactions after which he filed an FIR with the DB Marg police on January 14. A team supervised by DCP Mohit Garg, led by senior PI Vinay Ghorpade, inspector Vilas Bhosale and assistant inspector Tukaram Dige began a probe and traced the accused, Zafar Khan (23), a class XII drop-out, to Bharatpur, Rajasthan. Dige, along with staff Suraj Dahigude and Sudarshan Shinde, later went to Bharatpur and apprehended Khan. It was after his detention that a larger scam came to the fore.

While police seized Khan’s mobile and made 100% recovery of the stolen money, they also learnt that Khan used ‘Friend Search Tool’ app on mobile to zero in on his targets.

“Khan would put a random mobile number and search in the App, and would get hundreds of mobile numbers of people from that locality. He would then get details of these people from Truecaller and target them,” said an officer.

He would call people saying he owed money to his/her father/brother and wanted to return the sum. He would take their account number and also send fake SMSes of money being credited into their bank. Later, he would tell them he had credited additional sum by mistake and ask them to return it.

“In some cases, the victim unknowingly returned money and those who didn’t were threatened with a police case. We are hoping to crack one more case registered with us where the arrested accused is involved,” said an officer.

Khan’s brother Kareem and a third person whose bank account was used to credit proceeds of crime are wanted in the case.

  • Published On Feb 23, 2024 at 05:45 PM IST

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