Cyber Fraud: Delhi Police Unearths International Criminal Gang Duping 11,000 People in Connection to Work-From-Home Jobs

An International cyber criminal gang had been duping people in India on the pretext of providing work from home jobs in Amazon for many months and successfully siphoned off over Rs 200 crore.

New Delhi: Delhi Police has unearthed an international gang of cyber crooks based in China, and Dubai, and a mastermind in Georgia, who have defrauded 11,000 people on the pretext of providing online work from home jobs in Amazon, an official said on Friday. The gang duped people of crores of rupees on the pretext of providing online jobs. Police have so far arrested three people in separate raids conducted at Delhi, Gurugram and Fatehabad (Haryana) in this connection.

The accused have been identified as Satish Yadav, 36, Abhishek Garg, 40, and Sandeep Mahla. Deputy Commissioner of Police, Outer North, Devesh Kumar Mahla, said the investigation done so far indicated that Chinese cyber criminals have developed a module to cheat people looking for online work from home jobs or part time jobs as Chinese loan fraud are now declining due to action by agencies and awareness among people.

"A complaint was received by Delhi Police in which a woman stated that she was cheated of Rs 1.18 lakh by some unknown scammers in the garb of providing online part-time jobs in Amazon. In the complaint, the woman stated that it is a well drafted big scam being run by some unknown criminals posing as Amazon company. After ascertaining the facts, the police registered a case of cheating," he said.

During investigation it was revealed that the telegram ID used by the scammers was being operated from Beijing, and the WhatsApp number used to defraud the victim by convincing her to invest into a fake Amazon site was also found being operated from outside India. The police then wrote an email to the NPCI and Kotak Mahindra bank seeking beneficiary details of the suspected transactions and it was revealed that a shell firm account had been used to accumulate money from victims.

"During the examination of details received from the bank, it was found that a total of Rs 5.17 crore was credited in a single day. In further money trail, it was revealed that the whole amount was siphoned further through 7 different firms. That siphoning of money has been done to foreign accounts through crypto currency," the DCP said. The official said the technical investigation finally led them to Satish Yadav, who disclosed the name of another accused Garg. The third accused Mahla was arrested after his account was found involved in siphoning the money through RazorPay to a fraudster sitting abroad.

The DCP said that fake websites are created in such a way that they appear like genuine Amazon websites and one can get deceived easily. Websites are generally developed from China. As per police, promotions are being done on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube with posts of handsome earnings to lure aspirants/job seekers and they get millions of paid likes and ratings and reviews through digital marketing so that victims fell prey to this fraud.

Artificial intelligence is also used to pop them up before people on their screen finding online job or work from home. The scammers reach victims through WhatsApp automatically or in some cases, victims approach themselves. Victims are convinced with fake screenshots of WhatsApp chat with employees earning good money and well-crafted creative chats. To keep victims in darkness, the cyber-criminals have developed a "fool-proof" procedure like genuine companies use to run their organisation, eg providing a tutor to teach them how to work for which Rs 200 is charged. Any aspirant will pay such a petty amount to get a job with ease, police said.

Victims are asked to create a work ID on the website. Wallets are designed like Amazon where users can see various options like balance, tasks, order, withdrawal, selling/flagging products, they said. Then users are assigned with the task of selling or purchasing products for the company. Users get carried away when they see that products have been sold out and money reflects as balance in their wallet but in actual, they are tricked by the criminals who have complete control over the website, and they can make any modifications in users accounts, police warned, adding that these websites are operated from China.