Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offence Wing of Odisha Crime Branch has arrested one scammer in the Pan India courier scam, defrauding innocent people impersonating as NCB, CBI and RBI officials.
EOW Bhubaneswar sources on Wednesday said accused Rajat Kumar of Mohalia in Haryana was arrested on February 4 from Paonta Sahib in Himachal Pradesh under section 419/420/467/468/471/120-BIPC, R/w Sec. 66 (D) of IT Act, 2000.
The accused was produced before the Court of ACJM, Paonta Sahib on February 5 and was brought to Bhubaneswar on the strength of four days transit remand.He was produced before the Designated Court under OPID-cum-SPL Court for EOW, at Cuttack on Wednesday.
EOW officials believe that Rajat is just one part of much larger conspiracy/ scam of defrauding the innocent public by blackmailing them in the name of sending/receiving incriminating material/ narcotics drugs through courier agencies and by impersonating the authorities of Police, Crime Branch, NCB, CBI and RBI.
With the arrest of Rajat the EOW has got vital clues about real masterminds of this scam and the fraudsters sitting in Dubai and efforts are on to arrest them.So far 17 incriminating bank accounts have been frozen in this case and the investigation of the case is continuing.
During investigation, it was found that it is a huge scam using the name of courier companies and faking as NCB, CBI, ED, Police Officers.
Hundreds of people across the Country are being extorted for huge amounts of money. As the scammers use the name of a real NCB/CBI/ED/IPS Officer, people tend to believe them as genuine.
However, they don‘t show their face in the video chat. They use fake identity cards/ certificates/ logos which further emboldens the belief that they are genuine.
The scammers, in just 2-3 days, had extorted Rs 5.58 Crores (from many victims across the country using this single account),EOW sources said.
This money was further transferred to different mule accounts and ultimately a major chunk of this amount was withdrawn through an ATM in Dubai, UAE.