Two cybercriminals from Sarchu, a remote and oxygen-poor area on the Himachal-Ladakh border, were apprehended by the Delhi Police Crime Branch’s Cyber Cell in a spectacular high-altitude operation, according to a news release.
The arrest was made as part of an 800-kilometer real-time interstate chase that involved the systematic exploitation of impoverished rural laborers’ bank accounts to launder cybercrime earnings.
The case started when a woman reported a fraudulent deduction of 69,953 after being tricked by a fraudster posing as an executive from an online coaching platform. The complaint was filed at the Crime Branch police station.
Police conducted investigations in Jharkhand’s Dumka and Godda districts, where they discovered that a number of the bank accounts used in the scam were opened in the names of daily wage laborers who were illiterate. These accounts were purportedly formed at the request of site contractors, who kept the passbooks and ATM cards in order to subsequently transfer the proceeds of cybercrime covertly.
Two laborers whose accounts had received a share of the stolen monies were captured by police teams during coordinated operations. During their questioning, the identities of two important agents—Imran and Mansoor Ansari—who had escaped from Jharkhand and were trying to hide in the isolated Himalayan area in order to avoid capture were disclosed.
After tracing the suspects through Manali, Rohtang, and Keylong, a special pursuit force made up of Delhi Police officers apprehended them at Sarchu. The accused, who were 43 and 55 years old, respectively, admitted to running a cyber fraud network that utilized the identities of weaker employees by giving them low-paying positions and telling them to register bank accounts under the pretense of receiving salary payments.
These criminals had devised a new strategy of fleeing to isolated, high-altitude locations like Ladakh to avoid detection, knowing the jurisdictional and network limitations in such areas,” said DCP Harsh Indora, who supervised the operation.
To find other participants of the racket and take down the larger network that operates in several states, more investigations are being conducted.
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