Delhi Police arrested two who ran fake passport services website duping over 15000 across the country
New Delhi, August 12
The Delhi Police Central District held two who allegedly ran a first if it's kind fake website across the country and duped citizens with passport services.
The portal was called https://onlinepassportseva.org where more than 15000 across the country have been duped.
The police said the duo had established an online network in India for luring gullible people for applying passport. After the initial enrolment, the arrested accused had plans to obtain the payment of Rs. 2999/- online from each person.
The police further said that they were running two modules that were running fake websites in the name of ‘https://onlinepassportseva.org’ and issuing the SIM Cards on the identity proof of innocent persons and selling it to fraudsters.
As per the case details, complainant Md. Sohaib from Dariyaganj had alleged that one fake website by the domain of https://onlinepassportseva.org has been floated for applying new passport and is taking money from gullible citizens in the name of registration and appointment, etc. He alleged that someone had cheated him by using a fake website link of https://onlinepassportseva.org instead of www.passportindia.gov.in. He applied for passport on this site and made a payment for Rs. 2999/- through online mode.
Subsequently, the payment was transferred but he could not receive any response. On carefully checking it was found that the used site did not belong to the passport department and it was created by some cyber cheats, officials added.
The complaint was enquired and during investigation, the money trail as well as the website registration detail was obtained and it was established that these activities were being done by some fraudster at a very large scale.
The police added that on the basis of technical inputs as well as local verification conducted at Ghaziabad, the actual culprit was identified as Alok Kumar from Ghaziabad, UP. The bank accounts of the accused persons are being verified which reveal huge transactions of fraudulent amount and efforts are being made to trace the other co-accused persons involved in this case.
They have enrolled over 20,000 persons through this fake website. They had plans to get money from the innocent people. They also promote their site in top search by the paying heavy money for Google Ad’s.
The co-accused Alok Shukla revealed that a similar website of PAN Card under the name & style of ‘panindia.com’ is being run by one Vishal Bhai Jambukiya from Bhavnagar in Gujarat. He was originally a partner of the arrested accused and creates the fake website of https://onlinepassportseva.org.
On this, a team of Central District Cyber Cell conducted raid at Bhavnagar and arrested accused Vishal Bhai Jambukiya who was running the other website in the name of panindia.com. Vishal Jamukhiya was operating this fake website and from the whole income, he used to get 30% of the cheated amount as his share.
In the furtherance of investigation, accused Alok Shukla disclosed that the SIM number registered on fake website was obtained from Durga communication, Maujpur in Delhi. The CAF of said SIM was obtained and it was found registered in the name of Manoj Kumar a resident of Maujpur, Delhi and he was examined in this case.
He stated that in December 2020, a SIM was purchased by him from Durga Communication, Maujpur and while obtaining the said SIM the shopkeeper did the process of issuing SIM twice by saying that the first process has failed. Actually the SIM issued in the first process was sold by the shopkeeper to the fraudster.
On August 6, accused Anuj Kumar from Karwal Nagar and Ankur Gupta Maujpur were arrested in the present case. The culprits are very sharp minded in using the loopholes in the system.
The police have seized 10 mobile phones, 20 cheque books, some notepads and 25 ATM cards from the first two accused persons and details of their bank account are being analysed.
The police are further investigating the case to unearth the role of other persons in this fraud.
