Bhubaneswar, Dec 13 (IANS): The Commissionerate Police in Odisha on Friday arrested four cyber fraudsters for duping gullible victims of their hard-earned money on the pretext of high returns on investments in a fake online gaming platform.
The accused persons were identified as Vaibhav Khanna (29) and Kamaljeet Singh (39) of Delhi, Tejas Kumar Mahendra Bhai Patel (26) of Gujarat and Gugulavath Mahipal (32) of Telangana.
The city police in a press statement on Friday revealed that accused Gugulavath is a B Tech 2nd year dropout while Vaibhabv, Kamaljit and Tejas have studied up to 11th, 8th and 10 standards of schooling respectively.
“Our officials from Cyber Crime and Economic Offence police station and the special squad carried out a raid (Sundarpada area of the city) and detained four suspicious youths who were found operating a system using different electronic devices. We ascertained later during the investigation that the accused were running a fake gaming app,” said Bhubaneswar DCP Pinak Mishra on Friday.
The DCP further added that the accused cybercriminals have created a fake gaming application impersonating a Chinese gaming website, WINBUZZ365. Mishra also said that a case has been registered by police under different sections of the BNS and IT Act and arrested the four accused persons in the case.
Various electronic and digital gadgets have been recovered from the possession of the accused during the raid.
The police sources also noted that the accused persons used to lure victims into joining WhatsApp and Telegram groups, promising high returns on gaming investments. i.e. winbuzz365. They would send a link i.e. www. winbuzz365.com (Official Website) inviting them to join the group by paying a joining fee of Rs.100 initially. The fraudsters then ask the victims for more money to invest in the fake gaming app.
The participants were asked to deposit money via UPI payments using QR codes, but once the funds were transferred, the victim’s accounts were blocked, denying them access to their invested money as they have the administrative power of the gaming platform i.e. winbuzz365 and transferred the money to their account through a payment gateway.
The accused persons used to earn Rs.30,000 to 40,000 each to perform these operations. They had been running the illegal gaming fraud scam for six months.