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Jagran correspondent, New Delhi. The Crime Branch has arrested an accused in the case of cheating an American citizen of Rs 57 thousand in the name of hotel booking by creating a fake “Booking.com” website.
Police suspect that the accused has victimized many victims by posing as a customer support executive of Asli Booking.com and other service platforms. The mobile numbers recovered from him were found linked to 29 complaints on the National Crime Reporting Portal. The accused preyed on the victims by contacting them on the pretext of helping them in booking and refunding.
The accused is a resident of Bihar
According to DCP Aditya Gautam, the name of the arrested accused is Pratosh Kumar. He is a resident of Sheikhpura, Bihar and is 12th pass. He was using multiple mobile phones and a fake Aadhaar card to defraud the victims by posing as authorized representatives of the online service platform.
The defrauded amount was traced to his credit card payment. He was actively involved in cyber fraud for six years. Three mobile phones have been found from his house which contain digital evidence and objectionable WhatsApp chats used for fraud. Investigation revealed that the accused had used the defrauded amount to pay his credit card bill.
Complaint was made a few months ago
The police officer says that a few months ago, an American citizen had complained about defrauding him of Rs 57 thousand on the pretext of booking a hotel in Paharganj. A complaint was made to Delhi Police through mail. While investigating this, the team of ACP Anil Sharma of Crime Branch arrested Pratosh Kumar on Sunday from his ancestral home Sheikhpura, Bihar.
The accused, posing as a real executive of Booking.com, misused OTP and UPI methods from many victims. Posing as a customer support executive, he obtained sensitive information from the victims and conducted illegal transactions. A fake Aadhaar card was used to obtain the SIM card for fraud.