New Delhi: The cyber cell of the Delhi police has arrested four people for allegedly running fake websites of multiple reputed brands and duping aspiring businessmen on the pretext of getting them franchise, dealership and distributorship.
According to the police, the accused would cheat victims by running the fake websites of reputed brands like Patanjali, Haldiram, Amul by getting them registered with similar-sounding domain names and promoting them through Google Ads for higher ranking and online visibility.
The police got to know about 17 bank accounts used by the accused which were later frozen. During the investigation, it was also revealed that the accused were linked to around 126 cyber-fraud incidents across 16 states and duped over Rs 1.1 crore from people so far.
The matter came to light when a woman, who was cheated by the accused approached the police after she came to know that she was duped by the gang. The victim, wanted to run a Haldiram outlet and while surfing online, she came across a website claiming to be of Haldiram and it offered franchise and dealership.
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A phone number was also given on the website and when she contacted on the number, she was asked to fill some forms, submit documents and pay various charges for verification, security deposits etc and ended up being duped of Rs 11.74 lakh over a period of two months.
When she was asked to pay another Rs 1.6 lakh on flimsy ground, she realised she has fallen prey to fraud.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber) Anvesh Roy said that during the course of the investigation, it was found that a large number of fake websites are running in the name of Haldiram, and all these websites are offering franchisees of Haldiram for huge amounts.
"It was also found that a large number of people across the country has become victims of these fake websites. It also came to our notice that these fraudsters were using multiple bank accounts and a large number of bogus SIM cards in more than 36 smartphones to cheat people. The details of all these were obtained and the suspects were zeroed in," he said.
On the night of August 27 and 28, raids were conducted at various places in India including Nalanda (Bihar), Faridabad (Haryana), Ludhiana (Punjab) and Delhi. This led to the arrest of four members of the gang, said the officer.
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"During interrogation, accused Vikas revealed that he along with his associates used to purchase the domain names of big brands and got the websites developed in such a manner that it appeared genuine. One phone number was also displayed on the website. When someone called on the given number for distributorship of the brand, he was asked to pay fees on the pretext of various charges," he said.
Vikas used to switch locations between Bihar and Ludhiana. In Ludhiana, he used to stay for months and do the same work there with accused Vinod and Santosh, who both are his relatives. They were given a commission from the cheated amount, the DCP said.
Agency inputs.
