New Delhi: Delhi Police's Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit arrested two persons for allegedly impersonating the vice president of India and seeking favors from bureaucrats through WhatsApp. One of the arrested accused, identified as Gagandeep Singh lived in Italy. The other accused, Ashwini Kumar. Gagandeep Singh was arrested from Delhi airport while Ashwini was arrested from Patiala, Punjab, police said.
IFSO Cell DCP Prashant Gautam said, "information regarding the creation of a fake WhatsApp account using the photo of the vice president of India was received at the IFSO unit of Delhi Police, following which a case was registered at IFSO and a team was constituted. Details of the impersonating WhatsApp profile were immediately obtained and the IP address of the sender was traced to Italy."
Gautam further said, "the team worked on all the technical aspects. Raids were also conducted at several places, after which, one accused, Ashwini Kumar was apprehended from Punjab's Patiala. Kumar had shared the OTP for the WhatsApp account. Details were collected through different social media platforms, banks, and regional passport offices after which the main accused identified as an Indian national Gagandeep Singh, who was living in Italy was apprehended from IGI Airport, Delhi."
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Gagandeep Singh is a native of Jammu and moved to Italy in 2007. We recovered five mobile phones from Singh. During interrogation, the accused revealed that before creating a fake WhatsApp account, he got details of senior bureaucrats from the internet. He also watched several youtube videos to properly execute the plan. After creating a WhatsApp account, he put a picture of the vice president as display picture. Using this impersonating account, he started seeking favors from senior government officials, Gautam added.
