Kolkata: Two notorious Mumbai-based fraudsters engaged in extorting money from people posing as cops of the cybercrime division of Delhi Police were arrested from a hotel at Sealdah in central Kolkata on Wednesday.
The two accused have been identified as Vinode Kovinda Pawar and Dhanji Jagannath Shinde and are residents of Mumbai. The arrests were made following a recent complaint by a city-based woman to the Charu Market Police Station in South Kolkata. As per the complaint, the two approached her posing as cops of the cybercrime division of Delhi.
They informed her of several serious cases registered against her with Delhi Police and threatened to arrest her. The woman panicked and thereafter the two fraudsters gave an offer to her to settle the matter against a hefty amount. The woman in panic started transferring the money demanded by the two accused to their bank accounts.
After having paid a hefty sum of Rs 66 lakh with the demands for more money from the two accused persons continuing, she contacted the Charu Market police station. The cops of the city police immediately contacted their counterparts in Delhi Police and came to know that no such case had been registered there against the women concerned. Thereafter, the cops started tracking the SIM numbers of the mobile phones from where calls were made to the woman.
Finally, the two were arrested from a hotel at Sealdah. The police have also been able to track the money that the women paid into an account with a private bank registered in the name of the Shinde. The police have also seized mobile phones, SIM cards and bank documents from the possession of the two arrested.
Kolkata Police have again alerted the citizens of this new trend of crime where innocent people are being tapped by fraudsters posing as cops or CBI or NCB officials. The advice of the city police for the citizens is not to panic about such calls and immediately contact the local police station.