New Delhi, Aug 8 (IANS): Five men were arrested and four juveniles apprehended for employing website spoofing techniques to deceive individuals by promising distributorships under the prestigious banner of ITC (India Tobacco Company), said a Delhi Police official on Tuesday.

The official further said that these perpetrators went to the extent of launching online campaigns and advertisements on platforms like Google, wherein they provided fraudulent toll-free contact numbers associated with the ITC distributorship offers.

The accused were identified as Nishant Gupta (27), Suraj (29), Deepak (27), Santosh (27) and Sunil Shakya (41).

According to the Deputy Commissioner of Police (IFSO) Prashant Gautam, an FIR was registered on April 25 on the complaint of one Gulshan Chadha where he alleged that he received calls from unknown numbers who told him that they were executives of a reputed company.

They further managed to convince the complainant to get the distributorship of the firm and made him invest Rs 50 lakh. Later, the complainant came to know that he had been cheated.

During investigation, it was revealed that the accused persons were operating from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

"Police apprehended four juveniles from Patna in Bihar. A phone was recovered, which was used in net banking for the transactions of the cheated amount. Further, Gupta was arrested, who used to open the accounts of minors by luring them after changing their date of birth in their Aadhaar Card," said the DCP.

“The accounts opened were used in the transactions of the cheated amount. The flow of cheated money was also found in the account of one suspect, namely Deepak, who was arrested in Patna. Deepak, ran a CSP at SBI and did money transfers. Deepak used to keep the cheated money in his account,” said the DCP.

Suraj, who developed the website itcdistributorship.org was also arrested from Ghaziabad.

"When Suraj's mobile phones and laptop were analyzed, it further led to another gang member, Santosh from Patna, Bihar, who was using a fake identity. The technical data proved that both accused worked together and that Suraj was paid for website spoofing," said the DCP.

"Another integral part of this scam was Sunil, who was arrested from Gwalior on the disclosure of accused Santosh. Sunil confessed that he ran online campaigns and ads for the distributorship of ITC on Google by giving false Toll-free numbers in the advertisements," the DCP added.