Delhi Special Cell busts fake online redressal module, 12 people arrested

The accused persons created a website Jansurakshakendra.in and attracted cybercrime victims to lodge complaints on their website. They would charge the victims a processing fee amount and subsequently stopped responding by blocking them.

New Delhi: A team of Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit/ Cyber Crime Unit of Special Cell has busted a module who were pretending to be government officials running an online complaint redressal system targeting individuals who had already been cheated. A total of 12 persons including two females have been arrested.

DCP, IFSO Unit of ​​​​​​​​Delhi Special Cell K P S Malhotra in a statement said they recieved inputs that some racketeers were defrauding victims of online cheating by projecting themselves as government officials on fake webpages similar to government's complaint redressal system. 

A complaint was received, wherein the complainant alleged that while he was trying to complain about an incident of cheating, he came across one website jansurkashakendara.in. He called on the mobile phone number provided on the website as was informed that they are the authorized persons working with Govt and they would lodge his complaint/FIR regarding the cheating. 

On the pretext of lodging and enquiring his complaint, the alleged persons charged Rs 2850/- from him. 

The accused persons have created some more similar websites with names Jan Shikayat Kendra, Grahak Suraksha Kendra, Nyaya Bharat and others.

The module pretended to be Government officials and ran a fake online redressal system. They were cheating those individuals, who tried to lodge a complaint regarding online cheating. They would charge the victims a processing fee amount and subsequently stopped responding by blocking them. They used to charge the victims from Rs 500 to Rs 30000 on the pretext of lodging and enquiring their complaint.

"During the analysis of the technical data of the website and the payments gateways attached, it was revealed that several innocent persons are being cheated. Further, seven more similar complaints were found registered at National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal. One FIR was also found registered in Karnataka," the statement read.

Around 3000 victims have been cheated by the syndicate. Bank details shows that they had cheated to the tune of Rs 1.74 Crores. Seven laptops, 25 mobile phones, one Ertiga car and Rs 52500 in cash was recovered from them.

The module used to target individuals who lodged a formal complaint. The fraudsters employed search engine optimization to get these websites reflected on the search query. 

The Delhi Police appealed to people to be vigilant while making such transactions. It requested cybercrime victims to report the act on the government portal cybercrime.gov.in/ or call helpline number 155260. Also, no processing fee is charged.