Eluru Police bust digital arrest racket with links to China, US, Singapore

The Eluru district police detected an international ‘digital arrest’ fraud, which was being operated from Cambodia and Nepal, on Saturday (November 01).

The racket has links to Hong Kong, US, China and Singapore. The team headed by Superintendent of Police (SP) K. Pratap Shiva Kishore arrested 11 accused, and more arrests are likely to be made soon in the case, said Inspector General of Police (IGP) and EAGLE Head Ake Ravi Krishna.

The Eluru Two Town police seized 12 malicious APK software files, more than 150 bank accounts and about 40 crypto currency transactions, 112 Chinese illegal payment gateways and cloud servers traced to USA, China and Singapore, and ₹7 lakh from the accused, the SP said.

Disclosing this to the newsmen at the AP Police Headquarters on Saturday, Mr. Ravi Krishna said the accused made a phone call to a 66-year-old woman lawyer of Eluru a few days ago. The accused threatened that the victim’s Aadhaar card was used in criminal activities and showed her a forged ‘digital arrest warrant’.

“The woman was confined for about 72 hours under ‘digital arrest’. She was forced to mortgage gold, borrow loans. The victim, who got panicky transferred ₹51.90 lakh in multiple locations to the gang. But, finally she had sent a message to Eluru SP at midnight, who swung into action,” the IGP said.

The accused had made calls from numbers routed through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) gateways in Cambodia and Nepal, using Indian virtual phone numbers. The gang flashed fake IDs, warrants and case files to the women and threatened her, said Mr. Pratap Shiva Kishore.

“They took the victim virtually into their control for about three days, prevented her from contacting her family members or police. They insisted to transfer funds to mule accounts,” the SP explained.

The police team led by Eluru Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) D. Sravan Kumar and other officers tracked the transactions, which led them to Nepal borders. During investigation, it was found that the accused transferred money through APK malware, converted into cryptocurrency and then routed abroad, Mr. Pratap Shiva Kishore explained.

Police arrested Poonam Pravin Sonawane of Mumbai, Sachindra Sharma from Uttar Pradesh, Nithin Mishra, Harshit Mishra, Abhishek Kashyap and Gopal Yadav, natives of Uttar Pradesh, Sandeep Alone, a bank manager in Yavatmal (Maharastra) and Sandeep Wakpanjar, a police constable.

“Investigation officers located the scam servers in China, Singapore, Hong Kong and USA. Origin of the mule accounts were located in Bengaluru, and the accused operated from Hardoi, Sitapur and Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh, and the role of a bank manager and police constable was unearthed in the international fraud,” said Mr. Ravi Krishna.

More than 400 cybercrime cases were solved following the unearthing of the racket, in which more than 15 gangs operated at different stages. More arrests are likely in the case, Mr. Pratap Shiva Kishore Krishna added.